


The one with the wedding ring and the punch in the face

by afra_schatz



Series: rich blokes au [1]
Category: Actor RPF, Lord of the Rings RPF, Troy (2004) RPF
Genre: Humour, M/M, psych rip off, rich blokes au, whodunit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-15
Updated: 2012-08-15
Packaged: 2017-11-12 05:35:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 30,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/487297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afra_schatz/pseuds/afra_schatz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Orlando turns into Magnum, P.I., and Sean (without really moving) concludes that detective work is absolutely exhausting. Also, stuff get stolen, interviews are conducted, and someone wrongfully gets shoved into the pool. And that's just the beginning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The one with the wedding ring and the punch in the face

The location: 

A five star hotel. Possibly the Casa Del Mar, probably because Sean always gets to choose their accomodations. Orlando insists that there has to be a huge tub in their room, but otherwise he doesn’t care much where they stay or even on which continent. 

‘It’s not like we even leave the hotel’s premises,’ he likes to say. 

‘It’s not like we leave the bed,’ Sean replies and grins, and both statements are close enough to the truth to matter. 

Any five star hotel then, with a luxurious lobby where one (Orlando in particular) can slouch in one of the comfortable armchairs, read his paper in peace, and spy on people when he’s between articles.

The time: 

Summer, or at least the temperature and Orlando’s cream cotton suit suggest as much. Judging by the glass of whiskey in his hand, it could be either 11 a.m. or 11 p.m.. 

Sean’s outfit, as he comes strolling into the lobby (shorts, polo-shirt and sneakers, all lily white), tells that it is closer to eleven in the morning. Sean may be a little eccentric, but he is not in the habit of showing up to dinner parties in his tennis gear.

The people: 

Orlando and Sean, obviously. 

Aside from them, there are background extras of other hotel guests and staff, all rather nondescript. 

The exception is a small group of people, five of them. Nervous energy is buzzing like a swarm of wasps. One is hotel staff, high up the food chain. He has pearls of sweat on his forehead and that are running down his clean shaved neck. Two of the other men wear suits which are too cheap for them to be guests. Their grim expressions don’t suggest holiday makers either. The remaining man, in his sixties maybe, looks as loaded as pissed off. Every gesture of his hands makes it seem like a former professional boxer is hiding in the expensive suit. The only woman, about his age, is sobbing quietly but effectively. 

Sean shows only mild interest. He doesn’t bother trying to snatch words from the air as he passes them on his way to where Orlando is sitting. He halts in front of Orlando and twirls his racket. 

Whereas he barely glanced at the group of six, he takes his time taking in Orlando’s relaxed posture, the well-read paper in his hands, the half empty glass, and the coffee cup on the small table next to his armchair.

“Enjoying yourself?” he asks.

Orlando lowers the paper and smiles up at him. 

“When am I not?”

Sean smiles back – it’s a knee-jerk reaction, has always been – but looks unconvinced. 

“I bet ten quid that my morning was more exciting than yours. Did you even leave the lobby?”

“I didn’t,” Orlando confirms Sean’s suspicion. 

It’s no surprise, he has an odd fondness of hotel lobbies. Still, he folds up his paper and holds out a hand, making a ‘give me’ motion. 

“And yet I win. Pay up.”

“I see once again reality and you aren’t on speaking terms at the moment.” Sean sits himself down on the leather armchair next to Orlando’s. “Not noon yet and you’re sloshed. That’s the spirit, darling.”

Orlando laughs out loud, and Sean’s response is the same as ever, he hums with satisfaction, something close to a purr, and rests his case. Orlando waits for the smug expression to settle on his face. 

As Sean leans his racket against the chair, Orlando leans closer, lowering his voice.

“Now, listen to this: Apparently our hotel is a crime scene!” And before Sean can interject, he specifies, “A proper one, I’m not making this up.”

Sean eyes Orlando sceptically. 

“You look like you ate a Cheshire cat.”

“I am going to buy you a proverb dictionary.”

Sean demonstratively stretches out his legs, crosses them at the ankles, and folds his hands on his flat belly.

“You do that,” he says and closes his eyes. “Maybe that distracts you from whatever it is you’re up to.”

“I haven’t even _said_ anything!” 

The laughter in Orlando’s voice sounds far from exasperated. Or put off. He lightly kicks Sean’s shoe. 

“Sean, don’t be a narcoleptic grinch. Don’t you even want to know the details?”

Sean pulls his sunglasses down from their resting place on his head and slides them on. 

“Nope. You’ll just ruin our relaxation time.” 

Sean, Orlando is certain, only does that to rile him up. There is no way that someone as much of a self-made-man as Sean, as much of a workaholic worker bee, can be that much of a lazy arse. 

Orlando just shakes his head.

“Whatever would you need relaxing from?” 

“I don’t know. You, probably. Remember that time I suggested a stroll in the Alps, and you booked us on an expedition to climb the Himalaya? I don’t do snowsuits, they make me look fat.”

It’s unimportant that they haven’t actually _been_ to the Himalaya. Sean lets Orlando re-invent his life to whichever level of insanity he sees fit, but once a story is told he stays with it. Faithful is what Sean is.

Orlando still pulls a face. But instead of prodding some more, he picks up his newspaper, unfolds it demonstratively and starts reading the lead article for a second time. He’s in the middle of the third paragraph when Sean sighs ostentatiously.

“Fine, I’ll bite. Protestingly, mind.”

Orlando instantly loses the skimpy veil of patient nonchalance in favour of maybe a little too much excitement.

“So, our hotel is a crime scene. The cops are still here, you walked past them.” 

He gestures towards the group of six that is still conferencing, all brows furrowed collectively. Sean cranes his neck.

“The blokes with the grim faces?”

“That’s them, and I think they’re with the victims. Apparently, someone stole from the hotel vault which, as far as I’ve heard, is considered unbreakable. And yet someone managed to last night.”

He looks like he’s about to break out the popcorn and shout encouragements at the movie theatre screen. It’s only worrying Sean a little bit.

“What did they take?” 

“I’m not entirely sure,” Orlando confesses and shrugs. “That was when the woman started sobbing, and it made listening in a bit harder.”

“You’re compassion personified, aren’t you?” Sean’s tone of voice carries a little too much approval to make his verbal reprimand believable.

“I think they said that some jewellery got stolen?”

“You didn’t put the watch I gave you in there, too, did you?”

Orlando raises his hand enough for his loose shirt sleeve to slide back and reveal the simple but elegant silver wristwatch that Sean got him for their fifth anniversary. 

“Never,” he says. He glances down at it, runs his thumb over the smooth glass but then weighs his head from side to side. “I might have considered it if it was worth half a million.”

Sean chuckles warmly and pats Orlando’s hand on the armrest. 

“I love you, but I hope that wasn’t an indirect request.”

“Hell, no. But still, you gotta appreciate the beauty of it.”

“Of half a mill worth of jewellery weighing someone’s hand or neck down?” Sean sounds unconvinced.

“Of a theft like that right in front of our noses!”

The enthusiasm in Orlando’s voice could put any nuclear power station to shame, or maybe rather something less radioactive that is still able to power whole companies. Sean takes of his shades and folds them, apparently only so he can use them to point at Orlando with meaningful determination. 

“What makes you think I’d agree to co-star in an Arthur Conan Doyle novel with you?”

Orlando waves that aside and shakes his head. 

“We’re not doing that. There’d be way too much running around in grimey alleys involved.”

“It’s more like you’re the Hastings to my Poirot then?” 

The idea of himself with a huge moustache and a Belgian accent obviously amuses Sean. Laugh lines appear around Orlando’s eyes, and he pours yet a little more charm into his voice when he replies, 

“The what’s-he-called to Angela Lansbury’s character in ‘Murder she wrote’.”

Sean laughs out loud and once more, like about a hundred times each day, thinks that he couldn’t love Orlando more even if he tried. Then however he shakes his head. 

“So you really think that you get to be the lead detective?”

“I found the case, didn’t I?” Orlando argues simply. 

At the other end of the lobby, the angry victim of the crime raises his voice enough to attract attention. Orlando picks up his sunglasses from the table and puts them on so he can discreetly observe. Sean just stares openly. 

The man from hotel management shifts nervously, and the cops’ faces have changed from nondescript to a mixture of alarm and mild frustration. Sean’s changes back to mild interest, and of course it doesn’t go by unnoticed by Orlando.

“C’mon,” he says with something close to his bedroom voice. “We really should be helping out. Do some good, give back.”

Sean keeps his eyes on the party of six, but he replies, 

“Making fun of my choices in charity will not get you what you want. Besides, I’m not going to catch bullets for you, just so you know.”

Sean is a crap liar, and Orlando takes the statement for what it is meant to be. As the party of six finally dissolves – victims storming off, hotel manager retreating with caution, cops with something like purpose –, he turns to face Sean again.

“What do you suggest we do now?”

Sean gets up and stretches, a strip of his belly showing for a second, and Orlando is pretty sure that’s deliberate. 

“I don’t know about you but I’m going to take a shower and then I’m hitting the sauna.”

Orlando raises his gaze from Sean’s belly to his face. 

“That is possibly the worst strategy of investigation I’ve ever heard,” he reprimands mildly.

And he is possibly right in the grand scheme of things. 

However, what Sean lacks in initial blood hound instinct, he usually makes up (and has always made up) with sheer dumb luck. Or, as he calls it ‘being at the right spot and the right time’. 

Anyway, more about that in a bit.

A little while later (since a bit of time in the sauna has about the same effect on Sean as a lazy wank), Sean adds a spontaneous nap to his early afternoon plans. It’s just because he suffers from jetlag, is all. The fact that he can (and will) drop off anywhere and anytime – even in the middle of dinner parties he himself is technically hosting – definitely doesn’t play into it. 

During his nap, Orlando barges back into their room. He laughs at Sean before he announces that he’s had a marvellous lunch on his own (the bastard) and that he is now going for a swim. Sean responds with an eloquent ‘wha’ever’ into his pillow, and gets swatted on his butt for his troubles. 

It’s mostly the slim but existing possibility that Sean could get a chance to shove Orlando into the pool that makes him get up and change into his swimming shorts a while later.

He finds Orlando hiding behind one of the decorative palm trees by the pool side. 

Although his Bermuda's and his open shirt don’t point to it, he obviously fancies himself to be in full on spy mode. Sean’s pool-tossing plan falls flat for the moment. Orlando is buzzing with so much energy that he’d probably electrocute all the swimmers and bikini girls the second he hits the water’s surface.

“I swear there is something wrong with your Adrenalin flow. How you made millions despite your narcolepsy, is still beyond me.” 

Orlando smiles the smile Sean is used to waking up to. Or maybe he just isn’t fully awake again. 

“How was your spontaneous coma?”

Sean yawns and demonstratively rubs his bum. 

“I got the distinct impression that I got sexually assaulted during, so, you know, the usual.”

“That was meant as friendly encouragement to get up and help out.” Orlando pulls Sean behind his stake-out palm tree. “While you were power-napping, I talked to some of the hotel personal.” 

“I hope you asked them for more chocolate on our pillows in the future.”

Orlando ignores him. He’s very good at that. 

“Apparently the police suspect that the theft is an inside job. They honestly consider the possibility that someone, possibly the head of security himself, hacked the safe room’s camera and replaced the feed with a loop.” 

He leans against the palm tree, hand resting against the rough bark, and now this all distantly reminds Sean of a promo-shot of ‘Magnum P.I.’. 

“Oh my God, I am Higgins III,” he mutters to himself.

“Excuse me?”

“Nothing,” Sean waves his short moment of crisis aside, and finally Orlando’s words sink in. “So, the director of security did it?”

“Possibly. He seems to be a bit of a dubious character. At least that’s what Marc says.”

“Marc?”

Orlando rolls his eyes. 

“The head porter. Try keeping up, Sean. Anyway, Marc said that he overheard the cops, and they are at a complete loss as of how the thief even got into the safe room, let alone without getting himself caught on tape. Marc showed me a picture of the director of security –“

“Which he has because...?”

“Believe it or not, they have an employee of the month thing going on here.” Orlando gets temporarily side-tracked by that. If there is anything that he loves more than murder mysteries when it comes to shallow entertainment, then it’s competition shows. “I’ve always wondered how they do that. I mean, is there an official vote by, say, the rest of the staff? I’d prefer it if it was the audience, in this case us, doing the voting.”

“I’d give my vote to whichever maid put the most chocolate on my pillow,” Sean says serenely.

Orlando pointedly looks at Sean’s (flat, tyvm. Well, at least very close to flat. Shut up.) belly. 

“I have trouble taking you seriously, you know that?”

“I know that. You were talking about the chief of security.”

“Right. Marc showed me a picture, and I tell you something, if I was making a movie out of this thing, I’d cast him as the villain, no doubt.”

All it takes is an inquisitively arched eyebrow from Sean to keep Orlando going. As far as shallow entertainment goes, _Sean_ will always vote for Orlando’s imitation of people. He isn’t disappointed now either. Orlando’s accent changes from ‘posh Southerner’ to some version of the East Coast underbelly, his eyebrows furrow, and there is a calculating, mean smile taking up temporary residence on his lips.

“Born and raised in New York, and you know which circles I mean. And guess what, apparently he can’t be found for questioning. A mysterious disappearance and a twirled moustache, I need to go on?”

Despite Orlando’s enthusiastic sales pitch, Sean shakes his head slowly and leans his back against the palm tree.

“And your theory is that his mafia ties are the reason for him being employee of the month.”

“My theory,” Orlando replies, once again ignoring the mockery in Sean’s voice, “is that the police are onto something there. Call it gut feeling.”

Sean still doesn’t look all that convinced. Whether that is a comment on his view on the police or on Orlando’s belly’s investigative qualities is neither here nor there. 

“And their theory is that he used his access to put the surveillance video on a loop?” he repeats. “Next thing you’re gonna tell me is that someone made a scale replica of the room.”

“Like they did in ‘Ocean’s Eleven’?” Orlando finishes Sean’s train of thought with a nod. “Well, that is ridiculous.”

Sean weighs his head from side to side. 

“I was thinking along the lines of ‘brilliant’. I always wanted –“

“To meet Brad Pitt and proposition to him, I know.”

“What can I say, I have a thing for slightly younger men with killer smiles and a God complex.”

Orlando still leans against that tree with his hand only a couple of inches from Sean’s face. But his posture changes from sort-of-inconspicuous P.I. to an interesting mixture of jungle predator and streetwalker.

“Could you stop flirting with me so I can tell you more about my suspect?” he says with a minimal amount of exasperation that is undercut by his pleased smile. 

Sean shrugs and makes a ‘go on’ gesture of encouragement. 

However, Orlando has barely opened his mouth when their two-men-palm-tree-party gets interrupted by someone calling out,

“Sean! Seems like our diaries are sync’ed today!”

Both Orlando and Sean turn around to find three people standing behind them: Two men and a woman, all wearing friendly grins, the dark haired speaker in particular. 

“Hello again. Fancy running into you here,” Sean greets back. 

His 100 Watt smile slips onto his face, and its appearance is more than enough for Orlando to pay attention.

He quizzically looks back and forth between all of four them, but when Sean doesn’t instantly explain, he puts on a fake look of amazement as he addresses the strangers. 

“Wow, does that mean you three went shark diving after the sauna as well?”

All three look at him with that amount of confusion that people usually show when not yet familiar with Orlando and his lying mouth.

“Err, no?” says other (smaller) guy, and even from those two syllables it’s clear that he’s Scottish. 

“We went for lunch,” says the woman with a smile for Orlando’s benefit. Her smile grows a little mischievous when she hooks her arm through the Scot’s and adds, “And some dessert.”

“Considering that, I should have invited you to dinner,” the dark-haired man says to Sean with a broad smile that is the opposite of subtle.

Sean chuckles, and since he is being an impolite tease once again and still doesn’t make introductions, Orlando tries to clue himself in by quickly assessing all three of them. 

The boyish looking Scotsman (reddish blond hair, short and wirey built, a smile that is oddly soft as well as full of mirth) is obviously involved with the woman at his side, both of them obviously in love. 

She is petite, her hair (dyed?) a slightly darker shade of red and cut in a pixy-like fashion that makes her seem like the perfect match for her boyfriend. 

Finally, the curve of the second man’s mouth and the shape of his eyes bear close resemblance to the woman’s – her brother maybe? –, but he is taller, around Orlando’s and Sean’ height. He has a strong jaw, his thin lips are curved in a perpetual smile, and there is something about him that Orlando doesn’t like. Most probably it’s the way his dark eyes fix on Sean right now.

Sean nudges Orlando lightly and pulls him out of his contemplations. Instantly an expression of friendly interest takes over Orlando’s face, reflex thanks to his upbringing.

Sean introduces, “Orlando, these are Billy Boyd and his fiancee Alison McKinnon and this is her brother Kieran. We met in the sauna earlier. – This is Orlando Bloom.”

Sean wears his particularly innocent face which is so very close to his smug face that it’s hard to tell them apart. Orlando arches an eyebrow. Sean manages to look even more innocent.

“What can I say? I like making new friends while I’m naked.”

Everyone chuckles and Orlando replies, 

“I’d be lying if I said that that surprises me.”

“Speaking of lying,” Alison says and tilts her head at Sean. “Did you really go shark diving? I didn’t know you could do that here.”

Orlando decides that he likes her and hence doesn’t elaborate on his made-up fishing trip.

Sean says, “Nah, I didn’t. I went and took a nap.” 

His smile still winning prices for looking inconspicuous and making Orlando hellishly suspicious. He sees the small change in Sean’s eyes, the appearance that calculating glint, and he knows that Sean’s following display of shock is only partly genuine. 

“I have to say,” Sean says, “what you told me earlier really did a number on my head. – Lando, you won’t believe what happened to Billy and Alison. Their wedding ring got stolen right from the hotel’s vault!”

“Get out.”

Orlando manages to look properly shocked which isn’t all that difficult, only that it’s not primarily a reaction to the theft but to Sean’s sneakiness. He shakes his head and recovers quickly.

“How horrible, I mean. More than reason enough to let me buy you a drink, I suppose.”

They make their way over to the pool bar where they place their orders. Orlando can’t help it, but the entire thing feels a little like a scene from a movie. 

_‘The rest of the world of the rich and powerful people in overly expensive swimwear go about their business under the Californian sun, unaware of the dark mystery unfolding right next to them’_ and so forth. 

Sean looks likes a movie producer, terribly proud of himself. Orlando shakes his head fondly and finally turns his attention to the protagonists of this part of the story. 

As they sit down at one of the tables, Alison shakes her head and grips Billy’s hand tightly. 

“This whole thing has been awful.”

Sean makes a sound of compassion. 

“I wouldn’t know how I’d feel after what you’ve been through.”

“It’s just – yesterday evening I thought that this is all perfect.” Alison sighs and looks around the tastefully decorated bar, the bluest of waters in the pool. “This place is lovely, isn’t it?”

Kieran snorts and leans back in his chair. 

“Aside from the fact that it’s apparently infested with incompetent idiots.”

Everyone makes various noises of noncommittal agreement or disagreement. Orlando turns to the couple again, his voice full of honest concern. 

“What happened exactly?” he asks.

“Our wedding ring got stolen.” Alison repeats. 

“And it just disappeared? Are you sure you didn’t just misplace it?”

“Happens to me all the time,” Sean chimes in with a nod.

“Why do I find it hard to believe that?” Kieran asks, and the annoyance is wiped from his face as he smiles at Sean. 

Sean smiles back automatically. Orlando frowns, but really just because Sean _doesn’t_ forget where he puts his stuff. He’s like a walking inventory.

“No, we didn’t misplace the ring,” Billy assures him. “It definitely was in the hotel vault.”

“My Dad insisted on it and put it in right before we went to dinner,” Alison says.

“They told us that the safe was unbreachable.” Billy shakes his head. “Apparently that word means something different over here.”

Orlando leans back in his chair, a glass of orange juice forgotten in his hand. 

“I’m sorry. It’s not how I’d want my wedding to start.”

Sean mirrors Orlando’s pose but takes a sip from his drink. Then he looks at Kieran and crinkles his forehead. 

“What was it about the maid of honour that you told me earlier?”

Kieran seems disgruntled, and it’s an expression oddly unfitting for his face. 

“Ceana?”

“You think that she should be there for Ali , especially right now,” Billy says.

“Billy, come on,” Alison objects but doesn’t sound completely convincing.

Orlando tilts his head. 

“So, where is she?”

“We have no idea,” Billy says. “She’s not answering her mobile and we haven’t seen her since yesterday evening.”

“I’m sure it’s gonna be fine,” Sean offers.

Once again Orlando finds it rather marvelling how words spoken in his deep and calm voice can almost create a new reality. Both Billy and Alison instantly look more relaxed and sip from their drinks. Alison even smiles back around her straw.

Then, to Billy, she says, “I will need to borrow your best man, if push comes to shove.” 

She looks at Kieran who slides down in his chair as if suddenly burdened with an impossible weight.

“The best man, that’s you?” 

Sean is once again treated to one of Kieran’s pearly white smiles.

“Guilty as charged. Brother of the bride, best man, semi-professional party planner at your service.”

“Sounds like you’re a real multitasker,” Orlando says.

Alison’s voice bears distinctly more enthusiasm when she explains, “Kier’s a genius and has the patience of a saint. He even puts up with Billy’s sympathy bridezilla tendencies.”

Kieran chuckles, Orlando and Sean wear matching expressions of surprise, and Billy buries his face in his hand. Orlando waits until he lowers his hand again, then he guesses, 

“He accompanies you to wedding gown stores and tries out dresses with you while you freak out?”

“Close enough,” Alison says laughingly.

Kieran is grinning broadly and makes a mocking dismissive gesture. 

“Oh, the spontaneous ‘dress rehearsal’ he made us do yesterday night was only the ninth or tenth or so.” 

“And straight after dinner, too,” Alison joins in, shaking her head. “Shame on you, Billy.”

“Hey, not everyone is used to wearing kilts, okay?” Billy defends himself. “I don’t want anyone to stand in front of the altar and be accidentally be naked from waist down just because no one showed them how to fasten his –”

“And yet I still love this man.” 

There is so much honest adoration in Alison’s eyes that it easily outweighs the interruption and her mischievous smile. Billy kisses her cheek tenderly, and she says, 

“How about we just run away and elope?”

“Mom would disown you,” Kieran says mildly, but it doesn’t sound like discouragement.

“Don’t you have this big party planned?” Sean reminds her.

Orlando hums and sips from his drink. 

“It’d be a shame to let all that cake and champagne go to waste.”

Sean laughs, and Orlando sees that he has to keep himself from toasting Orlando. Instead he chides playfully, 

“Trust you to focus on the important things in life, Lando.”

Orlando fully turns towards him. 

“Do you know how much love and sweat it takes to make a wedding cake? I saw a special on the telly once.” 

When Sean doesn’t seem appropriately impressed he looks back at the happy couple. 

“Honestly, you can’t do that to the pastry chef.” 

Both Alison and Billy regard him with about the same fond bemusement with which you’d look at a monkey throwing banana peels at you.

Sean translates, “You love each other and the rest is just a thing of perspective.”

Kieran nods his agreement. 

“Well put,” he says earnestly.

“And good dance music at the reception,” Orlando adds with at least the same amount of seriousness. “I once went to one with a strict clog-dancing-only policy. Quite brilliant.”

Alison laughs out loud and the lines on her face tell that she’s doing that quite often. 

“Why don’t you come? To the wedding? And to the sort of stag night tonight?”

Billy looks delighted, for whatever reason. He nods repeatedly. 

“Yeah, positive energy is supposed to be infective, right?”

“I am highly contagious,” Orlando points out with the usual lack of modesty.

“Indeed,” Sean agrees dryly. “When is the big day?”

Kieran enthusiastically tells them more about the truly tremendous planning effort that is a big wedding, now only two days ahead. Sean gets seriously invested – he always is when the topic is planning impossible things, and he has an incredible track record of making them come true. 

Orlando shares a few laughs over that with Billy (or rather silent meaningful gazes of agreement over the table) but tells an unusually small amount of lies and just sips from his juice. Sean next to him contemplates whether you can turn a big wedding into a shareholder event for tax purposes, something that apparently Alison’s and Kieran’s father has suggested.

Speaking of the devil – Mr. McKinnon appears on the terrace that connects the pool area and the hotel. Orlando recognises him from his unamused and unimpressed look as the professional boxer from the lobby. 

Billy, Alison and Kieran leave promptly but not before once again inviting them to what Kieran calls ‘Stag Night Extraordinaire’ that evening. 

After they’ve gone Sean and Orlando look at one another silently, then Sean holds out his fist, and Orlando bumps his own against it. 

“Very well done,” Orlando says approvingly. “I am truly impressed.”

“And all that while I was only wearing a towel. Imagine what I could do with a pipe and a deerstalker.”

Orlando laughs and decisively empties his glass. Already pushing his chair back, he asks, 

“Shall we go up?”

Sean looks up at him. 

“I quite like it here,” he replies, nodding at the bar and the colourful deckchairs.

“But we’ll be overheard if we discuss the development here,” Orlando argues, explaining MI6 procedures to an imbecile. He pats Sean’s naked shoulder encouragingly. “Don’t be a fat American tourist. Come on, walk with me. I promise to buy you dinner later.”

Sean gets up with a heaving sigh. His efforts are rewarded instantly because he catches up with Orlando as he walks precariously close to the pool. 

Of course Sean can’t resist, and two seconds later Orlando lands in the water with a huge splash. As he resurfaces gaspingly, Sean rubs his bum as a reminder and points at him.

“Payback is a fucking bitch, isn’t it?”

“Oh, you’re positively hilarious, Sean.”

Orlando splashes water in his direction but doesn’t retaliate any further. Sean lends him his towel and he’s all but dried off again when they are in the elevator but still tries to shake water out of his right ear. 

Back in their room, Sean laughs in delight when not only the bed is freshly made, but he indeed got a couple of extra chocolates on his pillow. He immediately pops one into his mouth. 

Orlando looks pleased and starts peeling off his swimming trunks in the middle of the room. He tosses them in the general direction of the bathroom before he halts in front of the wardrobe. 

From where he’s sitting, Sean appreciates the view for a moment, but when Orlando doesn’t, move he addresses it.

“Are you contemplating what to wear tonight? Or is this just a show for my benefit? No matter what I said earlier, nakedness and deduction skills aren’t directly connected.”

Orlando turns around and looks contemplative and quite serious, or as serious as you can when you’re naked.

“I don’t like this whole thing,” he says after a moment. “I mean this wedding-gone-bad thing. Something like that shouldn’t be happening to nice people.”

Sean frowns a little. 

“That’s not how the world works?” he tries, but it sounds like a question because he doesn’t really know where Orlando is going with this.

As expected, Orlando rolls his eyes and waves Sean’s words aside. 

“I know that.” 

Just like that his face clears up like the sky after an unexpected thunderstorm. 

“But maybe we can help them out, Billy and Ali .”

With that he crosses the room and heads for the bathroom.

“Let’s just hope they haven’t got anything to do with it,” Sean mutters, more to himself than to Orlando, and turns part of his attention to the chess board on the table next to him.

Orlando, however, has scarily great hearing if he chooses to. He sticks his head out of the bathroom again, and he looks not amused. 

“Whyever would they? The ring was going to be theirs anyway.”

“I don’t see them _selling_ the precious family heirloom, not when Mom and Dad and brother are watching. Maybe they need the money anyway?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Orlando decides and disappears again. “I like them. They are adorable together.”

“You can’t just dismiss them because they remind you of a pair of guinea pigs.” 

“Watch me. How would they’ve gotten to the ring anyway? Besides, like I said, the cops have another suspect. The evil head of security.”

“Sounds to me like they are just fishing,” Sean replies, picks up a knight from the board, puts it down again. 

“They haven’t been able to bring him in for questioning,” Orlando argues.

“Just because you’re not available 24/7 doesn’t mean you’re a criminal.”

“Well, at least with him as the perp it explain why there’s no video feed of the theft, right?” The shower starts running. Over the sound of the water Orlando adds, “How else would you explain that?”

“We’re not seriously going with the ‘Ocean’s Eleven’ theory, are we?”

Sean gets up from his chair, abandons the chess board and follows the sound of Orlando’s voice. 

“Can you think of an explanation for how the thief got into the safe?” Orlando repeats. “I mean aside from the fact that he isn’t on video?” 

“We should get our hands on that tape. Or at least take a look at the vault. We could ask them to lock your watch in.”

“Not gonna happen,” Orlando insists. “It’s mine, I’m not giving it up.”

Sean enters the bathroom and leans against the wall next to the shower. Orlando stands under the spray and struggles with the small bottle of complimentary shower gel. He looks up and grins, wet curls clinging to his head. 

“I get what you mean,” Sean says a little belatedly. “Not pleasant at all to have a wedding as elaborate as this one ruined by such a thing. Just trying to imagine how much trouble organising such a thing is – gives me the shivers.”

False compassion drips from Orlando’s lips like water is from his nose. 

“Is that because you’ve already done it three times? Must get terribly dull.”

“I never had anything to do with the planning, believe me,” Sean says with a chuckle. “The thought of amputating my own leg with a spoon is less terrifying. But you heard how much blood, sweat, and tears Kieran put into this.”

“Sure, a wedding is never about the happy couple but about the bloke organising it,” Orlando comments dryly, his back turned to Sean as he fiddles with the water tap. “Or at least when said bloke is fit and shows an interest.”

“Hm, is he and did he?” Sean’s voice is lightly teasing. “I didn’t even notice.”

“I don’t even know why I bother with someone who is as bad a liar as you are.” 

Orlando’s voice carries enough exasperation for Sean to laugh out loud. 

“Same reason why I keep you around, despite your allergy to the truth.”

Orlando grins at him through the shower’s glass door and begins soaping himself up, starting under his armpits. Sean smiles and shakes his head.

“It’s called love, darling.”

Orlando regards Sean contemplatively through the glass. The water runs down in rivulets over his tanned skin, and it looks awfully tempting, the amusement on his face adding to the appeal.

“No, I don’t believe I ever heard of it,” he says after a moment. “You could come in with me, I suppose, show me what that is all about.”

“I could do that.”

Sean is already unfastening the drawstrings of his shorts. When he’s naked, he pulls the shower door open.

“You know, for someone who isn’t from Belgium you make a decent private eye.”

He is welcomed under the spray by Orlando’s laughing eyes and his hands on his chest. 

“Was that sarcasm? I can never tell when you’re being nice to me.”

Sean laughs and steps closer, runs his hand down the curve of Orlando’s back.

“Is that so?” he asks, his voice low.

Orlando leans in so his forehead touches Sean’s, water drops of his nose, and he hums low in his throat as he strokes down Sean’s sides. 

“Sean, don’t be Marilyn Monroe in ‘Some like it hot’. Or do, but without the stupid.”

The following shower could be called suspiciously lengthy. 

After this and after some more general lazying about in their rooms, they get dressed and rightfully think themselves looking rather splendid – Orlando in a cream coloured Valentino suit, Sean in a light grey-brown one. Then they have their usual argument about how Orlando’s Chucks fuck up his entire outfit which Sean (as per usual) loses. 

Sean claims that the exhaustion from that is the reason why he needs an early dinner, but Orlando just laughs at him. There are few things that Sean is dedicatedly fond of (and ‘fond’ is the rich people’s euphemism for ‘utterly fanatic’) – the price of gold, Sheffield United, tailor-made clothes, and meals prepared by a multiple star cook. 

Orlando makes jokes about Sean’s soon to be not-so-flat belly all the way down in the elevator, and Sean doesn’t disagree because Orlando possibly isn’t wrong. 

When their meal is served, Sean’s purrs of appreciation very much remind Orlando of the ones he knows from their bedroom. You’ve lucked out in life, he contemplates, when Sean closes his eyes in bliss, when all you need to be happy is watching your partner flirt with his cordon bleu.

Sated (on several levels) they now are hungry for some real detective work and willing to get their hands dirty. 

Orlando is very optimistic that they’ll catch their thief tonight, with the science of deduction. Sean secretly hopes for a wild car chase instead, but he’s not so stupid as to actually mention that to Orlando.

The so called ‘Stag Night Extraordinaire’ is located in a cocktail bar close to the hotel, and right from the beginning it’s clear that this isn’t going to be a normal night, even for bachelor party standards. 

“What do you reckon?” Orlando says as they enter. “Half Las Vegas strip joint, half ‘Alice in Wonderland’?”

Sean taps his chin with his index finger, feigning contemplativeness. 

“Make that thirds and add one third Highlander Hideout.”

Orlando laughs and doesn’t correct him. 

The spacious room is indeed a mixture of all three elements. The bar itself looks like Kieran had it shipped straight from Glasgow. The small stage, on which a band is just arranging their instruments, has got blinking lights all over it. It’s enough for Sean to actively hope for actual showgirls to appear any minute now. As for the Lewis Carroll association (which is possibly the oddest choice of the three) – it seems like this party is heavily themed, and no one bothered to tell Sean and Orlando. Everyone else has fallen through the rabbit hole and is more or less in costume.

Ali rushes towards them to greet them. She is unsurprisingly dressed as Alice herself.

“So glad you two could make it!” she exclaims with genuine feeling and probably the help of a couple of glasses of champagne. She even curtsies and then asks, “And who are you two supposed to be?”

Sean is about to tell her that they hadn’t got a clue when Lando lifts his fedora courteously and (with his poshest upperclass accent) replies, 

“Knave of Hearts, at your service. And may I introduce the Duchess?” 

He unsubtley elbows Sean who rolls his eyes but bows anyway. With his voice lowered as if sharing a secret Orlando adds, 

“You’ve got to excuse our plain appearance, but for obvious reasons we thought it prudent to be incognito.”

“Ah,” Ali says gravely, “’off with his head’ and all that. Very reasonable. Well, make yourselves at home. But beware of the white rabbit, believe me, he is nothing but trouble.”

The thus defamed mammal (of course) turns out to be Billy who looks quite fetching with his neat waistcoat, his pocket watch, and the gigantic white ears on his head. He and his friends instantly include Sean and Orlando in their tea party, shots substituting for lapsang souchong.

“Good to see you have cheered up,” Sean remarks laughingly as the second shotglass is pushed into his hand. 

Billy and Kieran (smartly dressed as the Hatter) grin at one another.

“Seize the moment, mate,” Billy says. “Or what is it they say? You’ll be late, be late for a very important date.”

Kieran agrees with him. “It’s surprisingly easy, cheering up, when my father isn’t around.”

“Hey, we said we wouldn’t talk about Sir Scoldalot tonight,” scolds a guy with mouse ears.

“Why is that?” asks Orlando. “Has he got his spies on you? Is he the Queen of Hearts?”

“Don’t say that!” Billy makes a shushing motion. “Or you’ll summon him!”

“He’s been on our arses all afternoon,” complains a very elaborate interpretation of the mock turtle.

The purple caterpillar adds, “Like he was J. Edgar Hoover and we were his own personal CSI slaves.”

“That’s inconvenient,” Orlando commiserates.

Sean can see the wheels turning in Orlando’s head, can see how he’s actively holding himself back to not prod and ask straightout. So Sean does the sensible thing. He forwards the next glass that Kieran puts into his hand directly on to Orlando. Orlando takes it and downs it in one go, like a trusting patient would swallow down anything that his doctor handed him.

“Jesus Christ, that’s disgusting!” 

The mad tea party cackles as Orlando only now skeptically inspects the greenish puddle at the bottom of his glass.

Sean translates, “That means he wants another.”

“I’ll need at least five more until I’m ready for a speech.”

“Speech?” the mock turtle asks.

“Isn’t that your job? You’re the best man after all,” asks the one with the mouse ears and nudges Kieran.

“’Why _is_ a raven like a writing desk?’” Kieran asks back sagely.

“Lando doesn’t need a reason for a speech,” Sean points out and nips from the glass that has once again miraculously appeared in his hand.

“Ah, I remember,” says Billy. “Swimming with sharks and the like?”

“You seriously did that?” asks the purple caterpillar and looks at Orlando with renewed interest. “You know, I wrestled with a bear once.”

“Oh, here we go again,” groan several of the others, but of course Orlando instantly has tasted blood. The great White has nothing on him when it comes to that.

Sean wanders off while Orlando and the caterpillar (Tom? Dom? Ron? The band has started, and Highlands Rock doesn’t really improve Sean’s hearing) try to outbid each other with hilariously exaggerated stories. Pinocchio’s version of getting your cocks out and measuring them.

He talks to some people with either ‘Eat me’ or ‘Drink me’ printed onto their shirts who try to rope him into a palace coup. He ends up at the bar again, chatting with the barista (“Call me Penny”). He is still nursing his first whiskey of the evening (well, later evening) when she has not only disclosed her most secret bar tending tip (“It’s all in the ice, see”) but also told him about a screenplay she is writing (“It’s about a barista, see”).

“He’s not a producer, sweetheart.”

Sean turns his head, and Kieran appears at his side and leans against the bar next to him. He smiles at the barista, and there is something sharp to the twist of his lips. It makes her turn around to fulfill his drink order, and it intrigues Sean.

“What makes you think I’m not?” he asks with amusement. “We’ve only just met. I could be anyone.”

“You don’t appear like you’re on the brink of a heart attack, that was my first clue.”

“I might just have a good remedy against it,” Sean replies, thinking of the core of idle calmness that defines Orlando.

Kieran takes of his top hat and regards Sean curiously. Then he shakes his head.

“Nah, still don’t believe it.”

“What then? Mob boss? Starving writer?”

Kieran just scoffs, but his eyes don’t leave Sean as he takes a sip from his glass. His eyes are a little too intense, a little too assessing for this time of night, for this location.

“Hmm, I was thinking more along the lines of rich heir, maybe aristocracy?”

Sean laughs and shakes his head. Then, as he’s known to, he abruptly loses interest in this game of hide and seek.

“I deal in gold mostly,” he says. “What about you? You aren’t really a wedding planner, are you?”

“Hell, no. I’d rather shoot myself,” Kieran replies with good humour but still enough heartfelt vigor to bring his point across. He shrugs. “This and that, here and there. My father calls me the embodiment of sloth, I like to think of it as a lifestyle. You know how it is.”

Sean reflects that he really doesn’t, he’s always been exceedingly one-track-minded. Still, he hums his agreement and quotes, 

“Far from idleness being the root of all evil, it is rather the only true good.”

“I hope you’re not making fun of me, I don’t take kindly to that,” Kieran says, no real force behind his threat.

“I wouldn’t dare.” Sean offers peace with another quote, “After all, if you remove idleness from the world and soon the arts of Cupid would perish.” 

Kieran’s smile is a lot less edgy than before, no less dangerous. 

“Sounds like you’re an expert on that.”

“Otiosity?”

“The arts of Cupid.”

Sean shakes his head. 

“Nah, I just know someone who could be called an authority on both subjects.”

“Intriguing.”

“You have no idea.”

Kieran arches his perfectly shaped brows. Then, suddenly, surprise registers on his face as his eyes fix on a spot apparently right behind Sean. Sean is about to turn around when Kieran raises his hand, his fingers abruptly very close to Sean’s ear. Sean frowns a little, but only a half-second later Kieran’s hand comes into view again, now toying with a miniature bottle of whiskey. It’s regular mini bar stuff which apparently he produced from thin air.

“I might just have,” Kieran says in belated response.

“How did you do that?”

Kieran laughs and wriggles his fingers in a mockery of a magician’s gesture. 

“It’s all about creating illusions, using distractions. You _were_ distracted.”

Sean chuckles and rubs his chin, then he points at the bottle. 

“If that’s single malt, then I’m really impressed.”

“You show a bloke a man-made miracle and he wants the divine.”

“That’s true, I apologise.” Sean tilts his head and regards Kieran again. “So, I take it that magician isn’t your calling either though? Pity that.”

“Oh, it was for a while,” Kieran says with the careless shrug of someone who can afford idleness. “When I was five or six I wanted to be the next David Copperfield. That was about the same time when Ali decided she wanted to become a famous ballet dancer. Only difference is that she made that come true.”

“She’s a professional dancer?”

“Yeah, I know, it doesn’t look like it, huh?” 

As if there’s an invisible connection between the siblings, Kieran’s eyes instantly find her on the dance floor. She is apparently attempting to tango with a human shaped flamingo. 

“It’s certainly a unique style,” Sean says.

“She’s great when she isn’t shitfaced,” Kieran automatically replies in her defense. “Even our father had to admit that, though you can imagine that he had other plans for her. It’s how she met Billy, too. He saw her on stage one night and was back the next evening with a bunch of roses.” 

He shakes his head but his chuckle is ultimately good humoured.

“Hopelessly romantic,” Sean sums up. “I like that in a person.”

Kieran redirects his intense gaze from the dancefloor back at Sean.

“Do you now?” 

His tone of voice reminds Sean of Orlando’s when he’s got the first sniff of a mystery that he’s gonna latch himself onto until it is solved.

He is about to say something accordingly when Orlando materialises out of thin air like a magician who has not so much been summoned but called out. His hand falls on Sean’s shoulder as he leans over him and steals Sean’s glass from the bar, emptying it without hesitation. It is a little rude and about as impolite as Orlando gets, and so far Sean has known just one reason for it.

Orlando puts the glass down again, and his eyes fix so intently on Sean that he looks a little cross-eyed, a little drunk.

“Sean, do me a favour. You have to tell that impertinent caterpillar that I _have_ ridden an elephant. Obviously he suckled too much on his hookah, he refuses to acknowledge facts.”

Kieran looks mildly bemused by Orlando’s overall performance. Sean laughs out loud because there is nothing funnier than an indignant Orlando. And Orlando is never as offended as when someone refuses to believe a story of his that is accidentally true of all things.

“Sure. Send him my way and I’ll set him straight. Anything else?”

“The car chase in Cornwall, for some reason he didn’t believe that,” Orlando says without having to think about it (Sean isn’t surprised, the Cornwall tale isn’t one of his finest). “And do you remember that time I took you snowboarding and you broke your leg on the first day and spent the entire holiday behind the bar’s piano?”

“How could I forget? I played Vivaldi’s ‘Spring’ and the food was awful.”

“That it was,” Orlando replies merrily. To the barista he calls, “Your best single malt and –“ he glances at Kieran’s glass for merely a second, “one more of whatever he is having.”

With that he pats Sean’s shoulder lightly, squeezes it and lets his hand linger for a moment. 

“Thanks,” Kieran says when his refill is placed in front of him.

Receiving a newly filled glass as well, Sean raises it in Orlando’s direction. 

“Cheers, darling.” 

Of course he registers both Kieran’s slight surprise at the address as well as Orlando’s laughing eyes. Ignoring Orlando, the little bastard, he turns back to Kieran, effortlessly picking up the dangling thread of their conversation. 

“So, Ali is dancer, you said? Does she do classical ballet or a form of this modern hop-and-twist that I never get the hang of?”

As Kieran starts to reply, Orlando pays for the drinks and leaves them to it. For all he has made loving Sean his favourite pastime, there is a limit to his dedication. He draws a line at people in leotards and tutus pretending to be swans. 

He dives back into the crowd, intending to relocate the caterpillar whose apparent close relation to Munchausen impresses him. Before he can find him however, he gets side-tracked.

A Cheshire Cat who looks a lot like Billy, just the younger and female version, bumps into him, and she would have toppled over if it wasn’t for a whole set of female palace guards with hearts on their chests.

“Whoa,” Orlando laughs, his hands steadyingly on her shoulders. “Careful.”

“Hel-lo,” one of the palace guard girls singsongs, her shirt stretching over her breasts just like she’s stretching the greeting and turns it into an instant come on.

“For Christ’s sake, Fiona,” says the Cheshire Cat with mock exasperation and a Glaswegian accent, “leave it. If I nearly get trampled by a bloke, you could at least let me have a go at him first.”

“Excuse me,” Orlando interrupts, “I’m as light-footed as a fairy.”

“Wrong story, Tinker Bell,” replies Fiona.

“Actually, it’s Orlando. And it’s nice to meet you all.”

A peroxide blond palace guard squints at him. 

“Are you from Ali’s side of the family?”

Orlando shakes his head. 

“I just met both of them today.”

“Ah,” makes the Cheshire Cat (who has more of a pussycat than a plotting feline psycho), “you’re the shark bloke from the sauna.”

Everyone else looks a little perplexed but Orlando shakes his head again and gestures vaguely in the direction of the bar. 

“No, that’s Sean. He also juggles geese. I’m the other, nondescript guy.”

“I’m Maggi, Billy’s sister,” the Cheshire Cat introduces herself.

The others follow suit, Orlando’s attention, however, stays with Maggi. His investigative instincts make themselves known again.

“Are you the maid of honour?” he asks with one of his particularly trustworthy smiles.

“She probably will be,” Fiona says. “As soon as we find Ceana in a ditch somewhere.”

“She is the actual maid of honour,” one of the others (a tiny redhead) explains.

“She’s dropped of the radar since yesterday evening,” adds another who by all accounts could be a professional pouter, she’s that good at it. “Seriously uncool of her.”

“So I heard. And she still hasn’t turned up?”

“If she does she’s in for a good spanking,” replies Fiona.

Maggi chuckles and takes some of the venom out of that statement with that. To Orlando she explains, 

“We had to do an all nighter yesterday because we had to fix the bridesmaids’ bouquets ourselves.”

“Isn’t that what a florist is supposed to be for?”

“Should’ve been,” sighs the pouty girl.

“Would’ve been if Ceana hadn’t fucked up the appointment,” corrects Fiona.

“It’s not her fault,” says a girl with a huge heart painted onto her face. “I’m sure she has a good reason for not showing up.”

“Yeah, like shagging,” huffs Fiona who seems mostly put out that their roles aren’t reversed.

Once again the redhead translates, “She started flirting with some bloke from the hotel before we even checked in.”

“You call it flirting,” says the blonde, “I call it heavy petting via eyelock.”

“If you want a good one, you’ve gotta act fast.” 

Maggi demonstratively takes a step closer to Orlando. Now her smile does bear a certain resemblance to the famous cat she is dressed as. The pouty girl seems scandalised. 

“A good one? Hello? He gives wedding hook ups a bad name. Just no.”

“Maybe it was love at first sight?” argues the girl with the heart on her face.

“Or he came with a nice ring,” says the blonde (with dollar signs in her eyes).

“Ali’s ring, or ex-ring,” the redhead once more explains for Orlando’s benefit (he starts thinking she’s a professional translator, possibly working for the UN). “It’s always handed down to the first one to tie the knot.”

The blonde shrugs. 

“It’s a reason to marry, isn’t it?”

“Are you implying that my brother is a golddigger?”

Maggi gapes comically, the others chuckle, except for Fiona who shakes her head.

“Not even if he came with the crown jewels. The bloke Ceana latched onto, I mean. He looks like an extra from a fucking bad mafia movie.”

Orlando’s interest zones back in like everything before was just a commercial break. Now the whodunnit is back on. 

“Really?” he asks nonchalantly. “Hotel staff you said he was? Not by any chance the chief of security?”

“That’s him,” the redhead confirms.

“Handsome _and_ a mind reader?” Maggi’s smile grows broader. “Oh, you can read _my_ mind any time.”

Orlando supposes he indeed knows what she is thinking – mostly because her hand is rubbing his arm again –, but the redhead is of a more prosaic nature.

“How do you know that?” she asks.

“Bad mafia extra? Exactly what I was thinking.”

Fiona smirks, and the heart-faced girl says, “Clearly a sign of congeniality, Fi.”

With Fiona’s eyes and Maggi’s hands on him, Orlando finally finds it prudent to point out, “Sorry, I’m really quite taken.”

“Oh, this wedding just keeps getting better and better,” says the pouty girl.

“Come on, girls,” pipes up the redhead and then spontaneously bursts into song, “’It was a teenage wedding and the old folks wished them well –‘”

Orlando recognises the Chuck Berry lyrics as well as the girls’ response – various dance moves, heavily suggesting ‘Pulp Fiction’ –, but he still has no idea what they are on about. But when it doubt, his Dad likes to say, just smile until either someone lets you in on the joke or they change the subject. 

In this case, it’s not so much a different topic that is brought up but the hands of the girls, pointing at the ceiling in true Travolta fashion. It obviously reminds them that they have been on their way to the dance floor. 

Orlando gets swept along by the tide. There are far worse fates than ending up doing the twist from an iconic movie with a bunch of character from an iconic novel. In fact, there are few things that Orlando enjoys more than a booze up with strangers with just the right cocktail of snippets of cryptic conversations, music that makes your body do all kinds of questionable things, and drinking games no one bothers to explain the rules to him.

It is quite a while later that he reunites with Sean in the most romantic of locations of all, the loo. Sean is already washing his hands when Orlando dashes past him. When he reappears, he feels almost comically relieved. 

“Jesus, I thought I was gonna burst,” he sighs. 

Sean dries his hands and attempts to look over Orlando’s shoulder.

“Have you seen Kieran in there? Cleaning up can’t take him that long.”

Orlando fixes him with a glare and Sean laughs. Orlando rolls his eyes.

“Honestly, I am getting blisters on my feet and my brain because I am taking this investigation seriously. And what do you do?”

“Shut the fuck up.” Sean is still laughing. “You’ve been dancing with six beautiful women less than half my age for the last two hours.”

“Fine. But if one day _you_ get murdered in some dark alley, don’t expect me to try to suss out who did you in.”

“That’s because you’d be paralysed with grief.”

“In any case, please try not to get yourself killed. I’d have to wear black for a whole year, and that’d be terribly dull.”

“We _should_ go clothes shopping,” Sean says and thinks he manages to make the suggestion sound very immaterial.

Orlando flips him the bird. 

“Sure, and soon I’ll have to rebuild the east wing of my house to fit in your wardrobe.”

Sean doesn’t dispute that, and they leave the loo together. They stop right outside in a more or less quiet spot where they don’t have to shout over the music to be understood.

“Did you get my texts?” Orlando asks.

“You texted me?” Sean manages to sound incredulous. “You were in the same fucking room with me!” 

It is hardly the first time that this has happened. Usually it’s just something like ‘Be a dear and fetch me a drink’ when Sean is sitting closer to the kitchen. This time however, Sean quickly skims over a short report of Orlando’s conversation with Maggi and her friends.

“So you’re thinking motive and opportunity?” he guesses. “The maid of honour and the chief of security?”

“Makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?” Orlando says with a shrug. “She’s dying to meet someone since her friend’s upcoming nuptials makes her painfully aware of how lonely she is. Not wanting to die a virginal spinster, she projects all her hopes and dreams onto this wanna-be gangster who has no qualms taking advantage of her.”

“You know I prefer film noir over MOWs,” Sean remarks, and effortlessly Orlando rearranges the story.

“She’s dark haired and has eyes as black as tar pits. Her mouth makes love to a cigarette when he first lays eyes on her –,“ he pauses for Sean’s delighted snickering, “and he knows she will be trouble, but damn if he ever could resist a smoldering look like that. And thus her devious plan to ruin the wedding unfolds.”

“I like it. But the question remains: How do we get a hold of them, and what have they done with the ring?”

Orlando looks thoughtful but doesn’t reply. 

As if life was an extremely economically edited movie, this is exactly the moment the band stops playing. The unpleasant sound of mic feedback draws everyone’s attention towards the stage.

“Good evening everyone!” Ali in Wonderland shouts into the microphone. She gets a mixed back of greetings, claps and cat calls in response. 

“All right, alright. Now, I’m not one for long speeches –“, the majority of guests laughs but she waves that off, “so I thought I could do some interpretive dancing to show you how much it means to Billy –“

“I love you!” Billy hollers from somewhere in the audience, and Ali smiles.

“How much it means to Billy and me that you’re all here with us.”

“Was just round the corner,” a decidedly Scottish voice replies joyously.

“We went through all this trouble to make sure you wouldn’t show, Craig. And look where that got us. Anyways, I was gonna do a little dance for you all but Billy –“

“I love you!” Billy shouts again, clearly somewhat on autopilot.

“– pointed out to me that I’m too fucking drunk already and they may just be right.” 

She raises a shotglass, toasts the crowd and tosses the drink back. Then she continues, 

“So there’s no speech or dance, just a simple thank you. Oh, and a friendly reminder: In case you’re still hung over during the ceremony – if you puke during my wedding, I will skin you!”

Another round of collective laughter follows, and Ali waits it out.

“So, anyway, if anyone has something to say that will keep us from partying all night, they shall speak now or forever hold their –“

“Wait!”

The unexpected interruption in a high pitched voice makes everyone turn their heads in surprise. Ali looks just as bemused, and her eyes rake the crowd. Before the slightly nonplussed look leaves her face, a woman climbs onto the stage and all but octopus-hugs the bride-to-be.

Sean and Orlando share a look of collectively raised eyebrows. It’s not every day that bachelor party speeches are cut short by bear hugs from the Scottish equivalent to Brittany Murphy (rocking the 80s hooker look with too skinny torn jeans, too wide a t-shirt and killer stilettos). The rest of the crowd seems just as dumbstruck. 

Fiona is the one who first shakes it off.

“Ceana! Where the fuck have you been?”

The hooker (Ceana, the missing maid of honour, presumably) lets go of Ali who stares at her like Santa has come early and brought his skanky girl friend. Ceana takes the microphone from her hand, and as she turns towards the crowd, Orlando instantly squints at the print on her t-shirt.

“Is that –?” he starts, but Sean shushes him, eyes firmly on the clearly drunk blonde on stage who just now clears her throat.

“I may be a tad lateish,” she says, “but it’s absolutely my pleasure and duty as the maid of honour to toast two of the people absolutely dearest to me,“ a well placed sentimental sob is added for effect, “Billy and Ali, may your love be like Bonnie and Clyde’s – fucking exciting, scorchingly hot and absolutely on the fast lane!”

“And violently cut short by a blaze of gunfire,” Kieran mutters as the audience cheers with evident amusement. 

He has appeared at Sean’s side again, and Sean has to chuckle at his bone dry tone of voice. Orlando is a bit of a tougher crowd. He smiles politely, but as Ali and Ceana leave the stage, talking animatedly, he points at Sean’s pocket.

“Check your messages. I think there’s been a development.”

Without further explanation he slides back into the large mob just as the music starts again.

“Development?” Kieran repeats.

Sean makes a dismissive gesture. 

“We’re betting on stock futures,” he lies smoothly. “It’s a nice change from the ponies.”

Kieran slaps his shoulder and leaves it there as he starts guiding Sean through the crowd.

“In that case, I know just the blokes to introduce you to.”

As Sean has predicted, his mobile vibrates before he and Kieran have reached their destination.

The message reads, _’Check out the print on the M.O.H.’s shirt!’_

Quickly he responds with what he thinks is a very eloquent question mark.

Orlando replies promptly. 

_’Mug shots of her. Yesterday’s date. U know what that means?’_

Sean wants to reply, but he has barely read the message when Kieran already introduces him to a couple of guys. If anyone from the Carroll novel ever struck Sean to have a gambling problem, then it would have been the March hare. So he isn’t too surprised when said mammal and his conspecifics turn out to be frequent visitors to the racecourse. Sean hasn’t got the foggiest when it comes to horse racing, but a complete lack of knowledge has never before put him off a conversation before, quite the contrary.

Briefly his eyes scan the crowd on the dancefloor for Orlando, but he can’t see him. He has, however, the uttermost confidence in Orlando’s skills to be perfectly fine poirot’ing on his own. If anyone is able to wheedle information of any kind out of unsuspecting victims while being completely sloshed, then it is Orlando.

As it happens, it is around that time that the party gets entirely out of hand. 

Later, it’s impossible to reconstruct how the epic battle of one-upmanship started, but it divides the crowd sharply into men and women and quickly turns into something resembling a medieval Highlands feud. 

The men take the lead which is due to a number of reasons: The March hare and his cronies are absolutely fearless (and apparently burping pros), Kieran isn’t only the perfect party planner but also a fierce enforcer, and no one can beat Sean’s competitive nature once it has been prodded awake. Not much later Kieran has his arm slung over Sean’s shoulder, and they have their heads stuck together as they discuss battle strategy, the rest of the world trembling in fear.

Then the strippers that have been booked are spontaneously made redundant thanks to the exhibitionistic tendencies of some intoxicated bridesmaids. They will later claim that Ali put them up to it who denies everything (quite poorly so). Several new dances are invented, mostly by the Maggi and the palace guards who agree with Orlando’s suggestion that there is an imminent need to commandeer the bar, use it as an impromptu stage, and sing folk songs from up there while hopping up and down on one leg.

An undisclosed time later, Sean is completely wrapped up in a conversation about boats with Kieran when the caterpillar interrupts them. He wants to know whether Kieran has any idea where Billy is hiding. Kieran, for all his uberhuman organisatory skills, hasn’t and seems a tad displeased by that. 

A search party isn’t even formed, however, because the caterpillar has caught scent of their conversational topic and latches onto the idea of a huge yacht like the insect he is impersonating would to a juicy green leaf.

Which is partly how the following events are even made possible. 

Who knows, if the caterpillar and the Hatter had found the soon-to-be-married rabbit at this point, then maybe the rabbit wouldn’t have had to spend a greater deal of the rest of the night behind bars. 

It’s unclear how Orlando and Billy get separated from the rest of the party. Orlando of course will later claim that it was all Billy’s fault, and he was just at the wrong place and so forth. It could be argued in his favour that Billy _is_ Scottish, and that no one can expect Orlando not to be curious about the whole no-underwear-under-kilts business. 

Orlando asks very politely whether he could try on one of the kilts for the wedding, and it’s Billy who turns him down. For some reason, they have at this point ended up in close vicinity of a perpetually open store that sells (amongst other more dignified things) frilly mini skirts. Orlando is blessed with rather narrow hips, but so is Billy, so that is entirely Mother Nature’s fault.

To cut a long story short, Orlando and Billy get arrested by an ostentatiously humourless police officer who insists that running around practically naked from waist down isn’t cool. They are a little bit offended by so much disrespect for bold pseudo-Scottish fashion choices. But they have to admit that skirts which could be mistaken for broad belts aren’t really made to cover male genitalia. They follow peacefully.

The cell that they get thrown into looks so much like that of a low-budget movie production that Orlando instantly dissolves into hiccupped laughter. Billy can’t help but follow suit. They flop down onto the narrow cots in their less than spacious temporary quarters. Orlando sincerely regrets that he doesn’t know any Johnny Cash songs by heart.

“How did this happen?” Billy asks him thoughtfully.

“It’s how they do weddings over here,” Orlando says. 

Critically he inspects the pair of trousers he has been given by the police. They are an inch too short, scratchy, and (the worst thing) highly unfashionable. 

“Something borrowed, something blue and so on for the ceremony. But for the stag night it’s something skimpy, something behind bars.”

Billy blinks at him from the bench he is sitting on.

“Your explanations get less and less plausible the more you’ve drunk.”

Orlando shrugs. 

“Not the first time someone said that to me. Usually it’s phrased a little differently though. It’s more, ‘Lando, you’re a liar who tells lies’ followed by ‘stop it’ in varying stages of exasperation.”

Billy snickers. 

“Have you ever considered seeing someone about that? Maybe there’s a cure for... what exactly is your condition called?”

“It’s called lying, Billy. And it’s not a condition, it’s a life choice. Makes things more interesting, to say the very least.”

“I can see that. Especially when people come running after you, trying to punch you.”

Orlando arches an eyebrow. 

“Consider this for a moment – I haven’t lied to you over the course of the evening, and yet you’re still stuck in prison with me. How is that better?”

“Who says you’re getting all the credit for this?” Billy asks back, and he sounds seriously offended, like Orlando is trying to cheat him out of a Nobel Prize. 

“You should take the blame,” Orlando agrees. “If you had just agreed to let me try on one of your kilts, we wouldn’t be here.”

Billy looks at him like Orlando just claimed the first night’s right with his bride.

“That is like asking Ali whether it’d be okay to wear her wedding dress, man,” he says, scandalised. “Besides, you’d have to kill my almost mother in law first.”

“As a personal favour to you?”

“No, because all the official wedding attire is locked away in Rosalind’s room. It’s like Fort Knox, if Fort Knox was guarded by a spiteful dragon. I couldn’t get you a kilt even if I wanted to.”

Orlando starts rolling up the legs of the trousers of shame until he has reached his knees. He pulls a face; this isn’t better. 

“Well, then I’ll have to pass. And as much fun as that exhibitionism thing was, I can’t see that working in the freezing North anyway. Icicles dangling from private parts? No, thank you.”

Billy watches him fiddle with his trousers with the sloshed equivalent of thoughtful.

“You haven’t been North of London much, have you?”

“Not if I can help it,” Orlando says with so much feeling that even to his own ears it doesn’t sound convincing. 

Billy plays along though and scratches his head contemplatively. He is still wearing his bunny ears. Orlando gets up again. The legs of his horrible trousers are of different lengths now. This won’t do.

Billy says, “Curious. I was sure that Sean’s accent was from up North.”

“Sheffield, born and raised, yeah,” Orlando confirms “His parents still live up there, actually. Beats me why.”

“Careful now, Southerner,” Billy warns, his accent suddenly thick to the point of near incomprehensibility. “So, I got that right that you and Sean –?”

He lets the sentence hang in the air between them, but Orlando gets it anyway. He finally sits down and tries to ignore the scratch of cheap fabric against his skin.

“Yeah, we are. Have been for ages.”

Billy nods, like he knows the feeling. 

“Same with me and Ali. At least it feels like that, you know. In a good way, I mean. It’s a horrible cliché, I know that, but I honestly can’t remember what it was like to not know her. How did you meet Sean?” 

Billy raises a hand before Orlando can even open his mouth and provides the most plausible answer himself. 

“Don’t tell me. He was the psychologist treating you for your psychoses?”

Orlando hums with admiration. 

“Nice one. No, actually, we met at a funeral.”

“And here we go again,” Billy says laughingly, clearly not intending to believe a single word of whatever is going to follow. 

Orlando personally thinks that kind of premature judgment unwise, but he doesn’t comment on it. It’s not like it is the first time it happens to him; actually it’s just Sean who usually chooses to listen for long enough to be able to tell lies from the truth. 

Still, Billy looks at him with expectation, and Orlando obliges.

“It was the one of my great aunt, once removed or something like that, I always forget. And honestly, I still don’t get why I am supposed to attend a funeral of someone I can’t even remember my relation to.”

Billy feigns understanding and nods with all the seriousness a man in neon green trackpants and bunnyears can muster.

“And let me guess, your great aunt had a son, and that was Sean. Which makes him... your uncle. Seriously, Orlando, eew.”

“Wrong again. Much more boring than that actually. Sean chatted me up while I was standing next to the open grave.”

“Okay, I’ll bite. What did he say?”

Orlando thinks that his face does a pretty good job at imitating Sean when he’s being suave. However, judging from Billy’s slightly flummoxed reaction, it is only partly successful. He clears his throat to make room for his bastard Sheffield accent.

“’e stepped up t’me while I were standing next t’grave, waitin’ for larkin’ about and cryin’ t’be done, and ‘e asked, ’Tha as bloody bored as us?’.”

Billy laughs hard enough for his bunnyears to slide down.

“Christ, I have no idea whether you’re fucking with me right now. Just to be on the safe side, can I change the story of myself and Ali?”

“Sure, go ahead.”

Billy thinks about it for a moment, and Orlando can’t help but feel like a proud father watching his son’s first steps. Which is quite ridiculous because as it turns out Billy probably has a university degree in delusions.

“So, when Ali and I met for the first time, she arrested me,” he starts easily. “I can tell you, I was lucky she didn’t shoot me as well. See, she really works for an insurance company, and I actually am a high-end art thief. Paintings, sculptures, comic book collectibles, what have you.”

“So it was _you_ who stole that ring?”

“Jesus, why would you ruin a perfectly good conversation by reminding me of that?”

“Sorry,” Orlando says and isn’t. 

Still, he’s most likely going to be cellmates with Billy for a while, best keep the conversation light. He smirks and tries to get into shallower waters again. 

“Just out of interest, if you’re a cat burglar, isn’t a kilt awfully impractical?” 

“I’m Scottish, it’s tradition.”

“I have always wondered about that, you know,” Orlando says philosophically. “Now that we got the lack of underwear thing tested, I have another question for you. Actually, it’s three. What is that thing in front of your groin, you know, the one that looks like a dead Furby? Is it a scalp? Is it armour for your tackle?”

“It’s called a sporran,” Billy says with the patience you usually reserve for old women fishing for pennies in her purse when there is twenty people in line behind them. “Kilts don’t have pockets, so that is where you put your change.”

“Ah, I see, a glorified manpurse, I get it,” Orlando nods and files that knowledge under ‘reality being less fancy than my fantasy’. “My second question, and it’s far more important, is this – is it true that you carry a knife around with you at all times?”

Billy nods. 

“Yeah, the sgian-dubh is part of the traditional dress. You tuck it into your kilt hose.“

“Have you ever killed someone with it? Is that why you needed to get out of Glasgow and get married here? Or is the all out American white wedding your childhood dream? Don’t be ashamed to admit it, believe me, Sean wrote the book on stupid romantic gestures.”

Billy tilts his head and looks at him as if Orlando suggested to dig their way out of the cell using Billy’s bunny ears. 

“Really? I wouldn’t have pegged him for it.”

With complete seriousness Orlando assures him, “Oh, he is. He once gave me a vial filled with aconite to hang around my neck for Valentine’s day. .06 ounces precisely which is the amount of poison Romeo purchased for himself. ‘Just in case’ he said.”

“You are so very cracked in the head.”

“It is true, honestly. I don’t really make up stories about Sean.”

Billy looks more than slightly doubtful. 

“Did he make you promise not to?”

“No, ‘course not. It’s just, the things he comes up with, I can’t even begin to make those up or anything even remotely of equal value.”

Orlando hears it in his own tone of voice – he may be an expert liar, but he could never even play down his feelings for Sean –, and Billy hears it as well. He’s looking at him now with a serene expression on his face that makes him appear much less drunk than Orlando knows him to be.

Orlando smiles.

Billy smiles back.

“You should come to the wedding, you know,” Billy says simply.

“Would love to,” Orlando replies and means it. After a moment he says, “I really hope that the ring turns up in time, man.”

“Yeah, me, too. But how high are the chances of that happening, honestly?”

“Didn’t I hear that the police were quite optimistic that they’ve identified the culprit? The chief of security? Opportunity and motive.”

Billy smiles at him, but there is something distinctly pitiful about his look. 

“Didn’t you hear who Ceana was arrested with?”

Orlando frowns. 

“She wasn’t alone? I had no idea.”

“Getting locked up for public sex is really quite impossible to achieve on your own.” 

Despite the whole messed up situation, Billy can’t help but smirk. Arrested for public indecency, Orlando can see a trend forming there for the wedding party and has to laugh. Billy however, hasn’t finished.

“That’s not the shocking part, believe me. The bloke she did it with – on the roof of his car of all places by the way – was the chief of security from the hotel.”

“Get the fuck out,” Orlando replies, maybe way louder than strictly necessary. 

“Ceana told Ali and Ali told Maggi. He, too, has a rock solid alibi thanks to the State of California.”

Orlando notices that he is still shaking his head and firmly tells himself to stop. 

“Well, crap,” he sums up. 

“You could say that,” Billy agrees.

Losing not one but both of one’s suspects in the span of five minutes would have had Hercule Poirot himself doubting his abilities. Orlando (who is way handsomer, richer, and less self obsessed in comparison) still feels like Billy ran over his puppy, reversed and did it all over again. He suddenly really wants to get out of here, drown his sorrows in whiskey and beat Sean at chess. That usually cheers him up, mostly because Sean is such a sore loser, it’s completely hilarious.

With an effort, he changes the subject, and Billy is happy enough to tell him the long tale of why everyone needed to be dressed like a Lewis Carroll character tonight. He is a frighteningly good story teller (including spontaneous songs and performances), and in no time Orlando is sobbing with laughter.

Ali and Sean arrive at the police station some time later in order to bail them out. They are good enough actors, so the policemen don’t notice them being piss poor drunk as well. 

Sean manages to look Orlando up and down with disapproval and disappointment when they are being let out. Ali gives him a slightly perplexed sideways glance as she hugs Billy. Orlando looks truly ashamed for a moment, but then Sean produces a pair of neatly pressed Armani emergency trousers. Orlando beams beatifically at him, and he can see the crinkles around Sean’s eyes as he walks past him towards the loo to get changed.

Billy and Ali actually return to their party which shows admirable dedication, but Sean and Orlando take a cab back to the hotel. 

On the way, Sean tells Orlando a rather strange story about Kieran and the caterpillar, a few meters of rope and the balcony and how it came that Ali invited the two of them to the rehearsal dinner as well as the wedding. 

In turn, Orlando fills Sean in on the unexpected loss of both their suspects and (at length) on the experience of wearing an almost-kilt.

It’s only when they exit the elevator on their floor in the hotel that Sean finally comments on the whole ‘getting thrown in prison’ thing.

“Honestly, Lando. The company you keep is more than questionable. Prison time is bad enough, but rolled up trousers? You should stop seeing the bloke.” 

Orlando gasps audibly and protests, “Excuse me? Just because I happened to lose my trousers at a slightly inappropriate time, and Billy was there to suggest a replacement –“

“That’s how the story goes now?” Sean interrupts with an arched eyebrow as he searches his inner jacket pocket for the keycard.

“Shut up.” 

Orlando pulls the card in question from Sean’s breast pocket. Instead of handing it to him, he gestures at him with it as he says, 

“I’m not letting you educate me on the finer points of making new friends. You let yourself get flirted into a corner by the brother of the bride.”

Of course Sean knows what (or rather whom) Orlando is referring to. Still he laughs in surprise and snatches the card from Orlando’s fingers. 

“I’m sorry, what? _You_ flirt 24/7.”

“It’s called ‘being a good sleuth’.” 

Sean pushes the door to their suite open, and Orlando walks past him. He turns around and walks backwards while he accuses,

“ _You_ were just deliberately yanking my chain. Again.”

“That’s not true.” 

Sean’smirk proves Orlando completely right. He switches the light on, closes the door. He leans against the thick wood, pose deliberately relaxed. 

“I was talking about boats with Kieran most of the time. Perfectly innocent.” 

Orlando narrows his eyes and looks at him as if he is being particularly dense. 

“You know it was probably he who stole the ring, right? For all we know, he nicked it to propose to you.”

Sean laughs. 

“That would be a possible motive since people do that all the time when they meet me. Only problem is that we only got acquainted _after_ the theft.”

Orlando looks decidedly displeased that the timeline is being such an uncooperative bitch.

“I told you we were talking about boats,” Sean repeats. “Mostly about the 46 Rider XP, Cigarette’s latest. It’s really shapely. It has these big intimidating engines, and from what I hear the dry-sump lubrication system does an exceptional job in reducing friction on rotating parts.“

Not for the first time Sean appears to have learned entire ‘Yachting’ articles by heart, and not for the first time he chooses to quote them back at Orlando, sounding like someone reading porn to the blind. 

Sean licks his lips contemplatively, and after a moment of thought he adds, 

“Kieran has got remarkable taste when it comes to things powerful and, you know, satisfactory on all levels.”

The corners of his eyes crinkle, cheating him out of a completely believable performance. 

Orlando rolls his eyes and growls, “I swear one day I will just ignore you and –”

“The hell you will,” Sean cuts in laughingly. “I have met you before, you know.“

Orlando considers Sean’s words only for the fraction of a second. He might exaggerate hilariously when he tells tales of dismemberment and bloodshed prompted by primal instincts – he makes the Prince of Lies blush with embarrassment. But sometimes they just elegantly conceal what can’t be completely hidden and they both know it.

“I’m not even objecting to the flirting but to your deer-in-headlights behaviour,” he says. “For heaven’s sake, you got out-charmed by a party planner whose A-game included magicking tiny liquor bottles from behind your ear, Sean. It’s embarrassing.”

“I’m rusty, nimble fingers are evil if they aren’t yours, and you’re not jealous,” Sean sums up, the disbelieving questionmark hanging in the room between them. “These the points you’re trying to make?”

Orlando comes forward again, and Sean leans back against the door, lets him advance. Orlando steps into his personal space, and his lips still curl upwards, and his eyes are warm. His chest is not yet touching Sean’s, but he’s still pretty much trapping him against the door as he regards him with attentive curiosity. 

Sean tilts his head, licks his lips as his eyebrows arch up.

“Well?” he prompts.

Orlando’s tongue wets his lips, heralding the response. 

“If I was trying to make a point regarding come ons then it would be this one –“

He closes the remaining distance between them and kisses Sean. Like his words, his kiss is as smooth and strong as well aged whiskey. He doesn’t even pull his hands out of his pockets, is absolutely confident that the touch of his lips is enough to hold Sean in place.

It is. Sean yields instantly and tilts his head and parts his lips. He breathes out a hum of pleased encouragement and agreement, then Orlando slides his tongue against his, and the hum loses the amusement, finds something more solid, something darker instead. As they kiss, he rests his hands on Orlando’s shoulders, the fabric of his shirt is silky under his palms. 

He keeps them there as Orlando pulls back with the same pacifying languish that defined the entire encounter.

Orlando arches his brow a fraction.

“Point taken,” Sean says quietly.

He looks at Orlando, and Orlando’s eyes focus on him, no intoxication whatsoever lingering in them. Fragments of the stag night – music, laughter, dancing, drinks, smiles, anecdotes told – buzz around them like fireflies, tiny passing delights, entirely unimportant compared to this.

“Always. You know that,” Orlando says, then he smiles. “That’s how it’s done.” 

He attempts to pull away. Sean won’t have any of that. 

He reels him in and kisses him again, definitely more forceful, because there’s no point in denying this desire and his intentions. Orlando responds instantly with the undoubtedly established self-assurance of a lion tamer stepping into the cage. He grips Sean’s head with both his hands, and this kiss is open-mouthed and downright dirty right from lift-off, and Sean’s pulse picks up just to keep up.

They continue kissing like this when Sean manages to push them away from the door. The alcohol in their systems teams up with the sudden urge of ‘want’ and ‘now’, together they fuck with gravity and turn covering the distance from door to bed into a bit of a challenge. 

They laugh and kiss and push and stumble, they pull and hold and grasp and stroke. They fumble with buttons, only to then spend five minutes right in front of the bed, Orlando with his shirt untucked and open, Sean with his zipper down and trousers riding low, distracted by more kisses and savouring touches. 

They try to make up for it by hastily shedding protesting pieces of expensive evening wear, and Orlando’s rich laughter fills the room as Sean finally shoves him onto the bed, naked at last. 

Orlando pulls the light white blankets over them and nuzzles Sean’s neck after Sean turned to lie on his stomach. He settles between Sean’s spread thighs, and Sean’s murmured pleased encouragement turns a little breathless as Orlando rains kisses on his shoulders and down his spine. 

When after an eternity of this and something more like it, Orlando eventually stops teasing and starts to push into him, Sean groans, 

“Christ, finally, Lando.” 

Orlando licks his earlobe and murmurs, 

“Payback is a sodding, sodding bitch, hm?” 

But Sean doesn’t reply in kind, banter a forgotten concept without meaning. Instead he grips Orlando’s hand on the sheets and relaxes. Orlando’s responding harder thrust is expected and still makes him choke on his breath. Orlando bottoms out, covers as much of Sean’s body with his own and pushes into him with smallest shifts of his weight. 

That’s how it’s done. 

If you toss back a good whiskey quick and fast, then you’re doing it wrong. If your sole objective is getting drunk, then you’re missing the point. Drinking whiskey is a celebration of decadence, maybe, it’s anticipation and savouring, certainly, and you focus on this one task alone, and take your time with it.

Good sex is pretty much exactly the same – especially since they happen to be slightly sloshed anyway. The late hour and the alcohol in their blood smooth any edges. Maybe it’s also just them that make this particular encounter a little more forceful, a bit more urgent, especially once Orlando has Sean on his back, and the angle is nothing short of brilliant.

He draws it out for as long as he can, for as long as Sean allows him to. When everything is stripped bare, when they kiss and it’s more important than thinking straight, Sean retracts his earlier teasing after all. 

In sync to Orlando’s thrusts, he whispers _‘no one else, no one’_ into his ear – and it’s a promise, a warning, a declaration, a statement, a promise, a caress. He can’t stop repeating it, even when Orlando comes, even when he hugs Sean so hard, he can barely breathe.

Drinking whiskey is about patiently building up to this one perfect moment that expands indefinitely and dominates all your senses. 

A good orgasm is really precisely the same.

Afterwards, Orlando lies with his head on Sean’s shoulder and his leg draped over his thighs. Sean has his arms around him and doesn’t see a reason for loosening his grip. 

“We’re really very, very good at this,” he says and feels more than hears Orlando laughing in response.

“That thing you do when you –“ Orlando says, and it’s enough for Sean to hum knowingly. “It drives me insane every time.” 

Sean tightens his hug just a little more, and Orlando grunts but attempts to shift closer yet. Against the warm skin of his neck he says, 

“I’m a bit bummed that we’ve hit nothing but dead ends in our Miss Marple reenactment though.”

Sean laughs and turns his head to face him. 

“What kind of pillow talk is that?” 

“I’m sorry. I love you, you are absolutely gorgeous, and sex with you is a revelation,” Orlando replies dutifully but of course can’t let it go. “Actually, let’s not go with Miss Marple. She operates alone, and I have trouble picturing you or me as an old lady.” 

“True. But I also don’t see how we could’ve foreseen that particular development. It all fit together so neatly.” Sean makes a sound of disappointment but then thinks of something, “Hey, maybe the chief of security has a twin brother, and _he_ was the one getting conveniently arrested while the other one stole the ring.”

Orlando pushes himself up, so he can look down at him.

“So, it finally happened. I shagged your brains out.”

Sean feigns indignation and shoves Orlando lightly, prompting a short wrestling match that tangles up the sheets even further. Orlando ends up pinned down by Sean but seems happy enough with the result.

“I don’t see you coming up with a better theory,” Sean responds belatedly. 

“We’ll have to go back to square one,” Orlando decides with his usual uncomplicated resolve. “We can start straight after breakfast.”

“I have a tennis lesson,” Sean reminds him as he settles next to him again.

“And by that you mean drinking cocktails with the instructor at 11 in the morning. Suit yourself, if you think that’s more entertaining than honest detective work.”

“I guess I can perfect my backhand some other time.” Sean kisses his shoulder, pulls the blankets over them and yawns. “How about a kip now?”

“Oh, how utterly dull,” Orlando responds, but his eyes are already shut. 

Sleep comes easily enough.

It’s around nine o’clock the next morning when there is a sign of life from Orlando again. Predictably it is the good old combination of a groan and the sheets being pulled over his head. 

Sean temporarily ignores the paperwork that is lying in front of him in favour of the show. 

There is movement under the blanket when obviously and arm and a leg at the same time cross the border to Sean’s side of the bed, searching. Sean picks up his cup of coffee from its saucer, and it clatters quietly.

“Where are you?” Orlando asks and makes it sound like an accusation.

“Up. Have been for two hours.”

Orlando groans again, and his head emerges from his ocean of blankets. 

“You are not normal.” He blinks owlishly at Sean. “We only went to bed five minutes ago.”

“You can sleep on,” Sean says peacably. “I didn’t intent to wake you.”

Orlando snorts in response to that and pushes himself to a sitting position, sheets pooling in his lap.

“Right. Like you being busy isn’t like having an entire swarm of bees in the bedroom.”

“I thought you liked honey?” Sean says with a chuckle, his eyes on his papers again.

It is odd how he is so used to paperwork and the appearance of official documents, and yet now that he attempts to fake some, he struggles with making it look convincing.

Orlando has managed to climb out of bed. However, the delay of his response to Sean’s question is a huge tell on the working capacity of his brain first thing in the morning.

“I do like it. Maybe I should start calling you that. Honey. It’s fitting.”

“No, it isn’t. And please don’t.”

“Fine.” Orlando thinks about it for a moment. “Are there any other animals that annoy their neighbourhood with their work ethics?”

“Ants?” Sean puts his signature at the bottom of some pages. “Beavers?”

“Hm. My little ant... beaver... No. You know, I’ve read an article once about elephants. Apparently some of them go around and regularly uproot entire forests. I imagine that should disgruntle the wildlife. Apparently, goats do the same thing on the Galapagos Islands.”

Sean puts his pen down and looks at Orlando (who is still standing next to the bed, like he can’t yet remember what to do next).

“What _are_ you on about?”

“I am searching for a new pet name for you and on the way provide you with useful information about the African flora and fauna.” He shrugs. “I thought it was fairly obvious.”

“Yeah. But why?

“Oh, I see.” 

Orlando nods pleasantly and finally starts moving himself towards the bathroom. 

“Mostly, the goal is to annoy you since I hold you responsible for me being up before noon.”

Sean chuckles, and Orlando obviously doesn’t expect him to answer; the bathroom door falls shut behind him.

“Do you want me to call room service for some tea?” Sean calls after him.

“God, yes, please. With an entire lemon tree, please.”

Tea with lots of lemon juice – or rather lemon juice with a tea bag for decoration – is Orlando’s recipe against hangovers (and jetlag). He claims that it’s a family secret handed down since the 1800s. Sean is more the ‘hair of the dog’ kind of bloke, mostly because he prefers the languid taste of a good single malt to incredibly sour juice the colour of albino piss.

Orlando re-emerges from the bathroom when there is already a third cup of coffee standing on Sean’s table, next to the desired tea. He looks more like a person again already, and after diving on his lemons like a self-sacrificing soldier would on a handgranate, he is finally fully awake. 

He looks down at Sean, who is still in his pyjamas.

“For someone claiming to be on his feet since eight you don’t look very presentable.”

Sean shrugs.

“I planned to get dressed but I found something more important to do.”

Orlando arches an eyebrow. 

“More pressing than the continuation of your love-affair with Italian silk and tailor made suits? There _is_ something wrong with you, honey.”

“I asked you not to do that.”

Orlando pulls a face and nods to himself as he steps closer. 

“You were right, it just sounds wrong. Like you were my middle aged American housewife.”

Sean laughs. 

“Well, you got everything right except for nationality and sex then.”

Orlando chuckles and wraps his arms around Sean from behind. It is partly a response to the sentiment, but also propping his chin on Sean’s shoulder, gives him a convenient view at the table. 

He hums enquiringly, Sean feels obliged to enlighten him.

“You remember what you told me about our former prime suspects?”

“Of course I do. I got a bit tiddly, not hit over the head with an anvil.”

“Well, it means we have to start over, doesn’t it,” Sean says with resolve. “And it’s about time that we get a look at the vault. Since you refuse to let me put your watch in there, I prepared some important looking papers that will now need safekeeping.”

Orlando lets go of Sean and sits down on the chair next to him. He gives him a slightly funny look, then he thumbs through the letters and contracts that Sean printed out this morning. There are eight of them, and Orlando looks at them all for a long moment before he puts them back into the folder. 

Then he turns towards Sean and looks at him like a schoolboy would at his classmate who did all his homework even though the school burned down.

“You do realise that it would have been entirely sufficient to stuff this folder with _empty_ sheets of paper?”

Sean frowns. 

“But what if they want to have a look inside?”

“Has that ever happened? Ever?”

“Well, no,” Sean conceedes but is still shaking his head. “I won’t go down there with an empty folder. That’d be fucking shoddy amateur work.”

Orlando looks at him for another long moment, then he obviously remembers that all this is his own fault really because he told Sean to take this investigation more seriously.

“Alright. Brilliant,” he decides. “Do you want to put them in right now or shall we have breakfast first?”

“Breakfast,” Sean decides instantly and – just so there is no doubt – gets up and moves to the door.

“Sean,” Orlando says, remaining seated, “would you terribly mind getting dressed first?”

Sean humours him by not just getting dressed but putting on his pair of grey pinstripe trousers (whose fabric constantly tempts Orlando to do dirty things to it) and a light blue shirt that perfectly fits the colour of Orlando’s Chucks.

They have breakfast on the hotel terrace, and over bagels and lox, croissants and omelettes, shrimp bisque, orange and vanilla souffle and cream tarts (Sean is in heaven), they temporarily forget about the case. Orlando explains to Sean how to tell apart male and female Galapagos tortoises. Sean informs Orlando (once again) about the state of the ongoing feud between himself and Orlando’s gardener, who is so delusional to think that rhododendrons would fit the style of the Edwardian Country house better than rosebushes.

Several members of the wedding party come and go in the meantime, and they are all united in various stages of hangover. 

It ranges from Maggi and Fiona (stuck in a still-drunk giggling fit), over Kieran (clearly suffering from a massive headache, much to Orlando’s amusement), to the caterpillar and the March Hare (Sean has forgotten their names) who seem less hung over and more freshly stoned. 

The grumpiest person by far, however, is Mr. McKinnon in comparison to whom Orlando’s hangover remedy is as sweet as candy. He spends most of his breakfast shouting into his mobile and completely ignoring his wife. She in turn looks like she would gladly trade her share in the family fortune for a drag from the caterpillar’s hookah.

After finishing the most important meal of the day, they make a bee line for the front desk. There Orlando’s informant Marc is on duty, and when he sees Orlando, he seems so thrilled that Sean wonders what exactly Orlando told him. His money would be on top secret Interpol agent, but knowing Orlando, it can just as well be Mossad or French Fashion Police. 

Either way, Orlando’s ominous backstory in combination with his smile (which on its own could even get the walls of Troy to crumble if anyone asked Sean) makes Marc nearly trip over himself to fetch someone from security.

It’s not the chief of security who greets them a few moments later but a man who looks decidedly not like Orlando’s idea of New York Mob but like an accountant. An accountant who desperately longs for hair implants, the nametag on his chest introduces him as ‘Jones, Assistant Security Manager’. 

Sean explains his predicament and really has to keep himself from slapping Orlando. Orlando (with the face of an angel) of course has to stress how utterly important Sean’s important papers are.

Without further questions, Jones leads them into the vault room. 

As far as highly anticipated crime scenes go, it proves to be very anticlimactic by being just that, a room with a vault in it. With a certain amount of pride that strikes Sean a little odd after the recent theft, Jones explains the specifics of the vault to them as if they were contemplating getting married to the fucking thing: The vault is built into the wall and secured by a one inch steel door. It is fireproof, bullet-proof, bombproof, can’t be accessed from anywhere else, is under constant video surveillance, and time locked over night.

Jones unlocks the door with a key that he treats like it was the locking device equivalent to Excalibur. In response to Orlando’s immediate question, he explains that there are only two keys, one is usually in the hands of the chief of security (who is, unsurprisingly, on leave) and one in possession of the hotel manager. 

Opening the door of the vault, Jones reveals several separate security boxes, and Sean reverently stuffs his papers into one of them and receives a small key in return. Jones then locks the door again with the same anxious care with which a paranoid father might lock the door of his sixteen year old daughter.

As Jones leads them back to the lobby, Orlando shakes his head and murmurs, 

“If you ask me, there is absolutely no way for anyone gaining unauthorised access to that thing.”

Sean hums his agreement. 

“I’d sooner get into one of my ex-wives’ knickers again.”

Orlando rolls his eyes. 

“You are hilarious.”

“Yeah, I know.”

As they re-enter the lobby, Jones bids them a hasty goodbye. Sean looks at his quickly retreating back and reckons that the man won’t make it to fifty if he doesn’t find something to calm him down. 

When he turns his head again, Orlando is gone of course.

After a moment of looking around, Sean spots him again at the front desk where he is deep in conversation with Marc, his number one fan. Sean can’t make out any words, but Marc is obviously nervous, his eyes darting around the spacious lobby as he speaks urgently. Orlando for once isn’t wearing a variation of his little smirk but looks completely serious. He simply nods when Marc pushes a small envelope into his hand. Briefly he touches Marc’s arm, thanking him, then he walks straight to the elevators.

Sean catches up with him there. It’s only when they are alone on their way back up that he enquires.

“What was that all about? Are you a drug mule now?”

Orlando looks decidedly smug. 

“We now have a copy of the surveillance video thanks to my connections.”

He waves the envelope containing the DVD in front of Sean’s face, and Sean swats it away.

“What exactly does that bloke think you are?”

“Single?”

“Oh, you’re hilarious.”

“Aren’t I just,” Orlando agrees laughingly. Then though he leans his shoulder against Sean’s. “Isn’t this delightfully exciting?”

Back in their room they settle on the couch in front of the flatscreen television, Orlando toes his shoes of, and Sean automatically leans forward when the DVD starts. Orlando fastforwards until they reach the 10.30 timestamp. The door to the vault room opens, and a man with a truly unfortunate moustache enters first.

“Meet the director of securtiy,” Orlando introduces without taking his eyes of the screen.

He is followed by what seems to be half of the wedding party: Mr. McKinnon (looking cagey), his wife (tipsy), Billy and Ali (obviously in love), Fiona and Kieran (obviously bored), plus Maggi and Fiona (arguing), and for some reason even the ominous March hare (not in costume).

“What is that bloke’s name?” Sean asks, still not getting anywhere with his memory from yesterday evening.

Orlando doesn’t answer, he is obviously trying to lip-read.

After the entire party has piled into the room, it becomes obviously a little difficult for the security man to open the massive door of the vault. Orlando and Sean both laugh when he rolls his eyes at the camera while his back is briefly turned towards the guests.

Mr. McKinnon produces a small black box from the inside pocket of his suit.

“Here we go,” Sean mutters.

McKinnon is about to hand it to the hotel employee when the transaction gets intercepted. Mrs. McKinnon, with surprisingly good hand-eye-coordination for someone who presumably has champagne flowing through her veins, snatches the box from her husband’s hand, opens it and coos at what she finds inside.

The box is now treated like the whore of Babylon, getting handed around and leered at by practically everyone. 

Ceana and Ali nearly bump heads as they stick their noses into the box and reemerge with beatific smiles on their faces. Mr. McKinnon as well as the chief of security grow more impatient by the second when Maggi and Fiona hold the box but are more occupied with arguing than actually looking inside. 

Billy looks up and rolls his eyes at the camera as if he knew that he’d have an approving audience in Sean and Orlando two days later.

“I love that guy,” Orlando says.

The March hare obviously notices Billy’s small performance for the camera and turns his back towards it. He ostentatiously scratches his bum and says something that makes Maggi laugh and Mr. McKinnon glare at him.

“I love _that_ guy,” Orlando corrects himself.

Kieran finally snaps the box shut in Fiona’s hand, nearly clipping her finger. She bitches at him. Maggi bitches at her. Mrs. McKinnon bitches at all three of them and looks like she is that close to instigating a cat fight. 

“I doubt Billy realises what he’s marrying into,” Sean says.

Kieran hands the little black box to the chief of security who practically throws it into the safety deposit box like it contains explosives. He looks like he is seriously contemplating a career change. Possibly into a field that doesn’t require social interaction.

“He’d make a good sheep herder,” Orlando says, obviously reading Sean’s mind, when the chief of security locks the vault and ushers the entire party out of the room. 

Orlando dutifully puts the video on fast forward now, and they watch how time races in the lower left corner of the monitor that shows the clock. The room itself remains completely the same. Only the next morning the door is opened again, and in walks the hotel manager, followed by Mr. McKinnon. They discover the theft, Mr. McKinnon explodes like Mount Vesuvius, and the Hotel Manager looks like an unfortunate Pompeian.

Orlando hits the pause button and turns towards Sean, his knee bumping against Sean’s thigh.

“I’m starting to think that our best bet is looking out for Danny Ocean and his crew after all.”

Sean doesn’t reply but scratches his chin and gets up from the sofa. Orlando watches how he fetches himself a drink from the bar and paces through the room for a while. 

Instead of interrupting him, Orlando fiddles absentmindedly with the remote control, zooming in and out at random, until the paused image shows a close up of Mr. McKinnon’s angry priceboxer face. 

Orlando involuntarily pulls a face in his direction, then he, too, gets up and follows Sean out onto the balcony.

“Whaddup, Mr. Marlowe?” he asks lightly.

Sean chuckles. 

“Does that make you Lauren Bacall?”

Orlando shrugs and leans against the banister. 

“It makes me someone wanting to know what you’re thinking.”

Sean looks like he doesn’t particularly like his own thoughts.

“How is it possible that this fucking ring got stolen?” he asks. “There weren’t even signs of a break in, nothing. It’s impossible.” 

“Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.”

Sean’s slightly disgruntled expression makes way for one rather full of incredulity. 

“You didn’t just say that.”

“Yes, I did. And I waited for a long time for the opportunity as well. And it’s still good advice.” 

Sean grunts, obviously neither trusting Orlando’s judgement nor Sherlock Holmes’s. 

“I think we both agree that Clooney and Pitt showing up here sadly belongs into the realm of the impossible,” he says. 

“So, what’s left?” Orlando asks, easily stepping over that small obstacle. “We know that there are only two keys – why should Jones lie about that? Anyhow, if the vault wasn’t damaged, then it had to be unlocked by one of the keys.”

“The head of security has an alibi and so does his key, so –“

“It’s the hotel manager we should be looking at.”

Sean shakes his head. Thinks about it. Shakes his head again.

“That’s utterly ridiculous.”

“But not impossible. Think about it. He has the key and furthermore who, if not the big boss himself, could have access to the security system, tamper with the time lock and the video transmission?”

Orlando quite likes the idea, but Sean remains unconvinced.

“But why should he do that? Why now, of all times? And why on earth would he go through all this trouble and nick just one fucking thing?”

Orlando huffs, but not even his inventive brain can come up with a plausible explanation at once.

“I suppose that is a bit odd,” he conceeds. “There are bound to be other valuable items in there, why not take them as well?”

“And a wedding ring of all things, one that is easily recognised. What’s he gonna do with it, give it to his wife?”

Now they are both frowning, and Orlando is a little displeased that Sean infected him with this utterly dull and pessimistic view of the world that he calls realism. But not for long.

Abruptly he says, “I can tell you something he would have use for though. Money. Cash. What if he got paid to facilitate the theft?”

Sean sips from his drink and shakes his head again.

“The problem remains the same. Why not steal the other stuff as well? Who wants a ring that is near to impossible to realise?”

Orlando suddenly feels twitchy with excitement, so much that Sean looks up and regards him curiously.

“What if it’s really not the ring itself they were after? Jewellery this valuable is bound to be insured against all risks. What if the insurance payout is the real pot of gold?” 

“But that’d raise thousands of flags with the insurance company unless...” 

Sean pauses when his mind has caught up with Orlando’s mad dashing about. Realisation dawns on his face. 

“... unless you are the rightful owner.”

Orlando’s eyebrows arch up, and he can’t help but grin with satisfaction. With a nod he asks, 

“Who was the one insisting on putting the ring into the vault? Who took as many witnesses as possible with him?”

“Who is the current owner but only until the wedding?” Sean replies. “Who has the key to the safety deposit box?”

“Who has been incredibly tense and high strung every time we saw him? Like there was something really eating at his brain?”

Slowly Sean turns around and mirrors Orlando’s posture, leaning against the banister. Now they are both facing the living room of their suite. 

They are looking directly at the blown up black and white image of Mr. McKinnon’s furious face on the television. 

Sean looks at Orlando. 

Orlando nods vigorously.

“Imagine he has money problems. He is sitting on a fortune, and yet he can’t get his hands on the money. He can’t sell the ring either because it’s a family heirloom, he can’t even borrow against it because he’ll have to hand it over soon.”

“But if it gets stolen,” Sean picks up the thought, “he, as the owner at the time of the theft, gets to collect the insurance money. And maybe even sell some of the ring’s stones on the black market later on.”

Orlando grins and leans in, briefly pressing his nose against Sean’s cheek as Sean’s arm automatically wraps around his waist. Orlando kisses his jaw and says with barely concealed excitement,

“I think, I should call home and see whether my ridiculously extended family has heard any rumours about the McKinnon business.”

“You could also try the internet,” Sean says with a smile and tightens his hold on him.

Orlando merely snorts. 

“Sean, don’t be a radio jingle for Firefox. When it comes to hearsay, the internet is a Carthusian monk in comparison to my relatives, you know that. You google him, if you think it’s worth it.”

“Alright,” Sean agrees. “I have a few mates working at Lloyd’s. If McKinnon insured the ring with them, if he’s filed a claim already, they should be able to tell me.”

Orlando feigns surprise at the resolve in Sean’s voice. 

“So you do get up, Mr. Marlowe. I was beginning to think you worked in bed like Marcel Proust.“ 

Sean laughs and pushes himself away from the banister, walks back into their room. 

“Come into my boudoir.“

Orlando does, but he sure as hell has plans on getting out of there asap. 

Sean, for all his lazy arse attitude, really is more like a dormant bear (he would love _that_ comparison). Giving him something interesting to do, is like poking said bear with a sharp stick at the end of his hibernation. He is like that with everything – business, chess, charity work, cooking shows, relationships. He’s completely one-trackminded and focussed, sees nothing else, for however long the subject in question holds his interest.

Sure enough, Orlando has barely even located his mobile when Sean is already on the phone talking to some old mate of his, pacing through the room. 

Sean is fiercely brilliant and has hellishly sharp instincts, but when he gets like this, he tends to treat everyone around him like his masochistic secretary. And all Orlando has in common with said kind of office help is maybe a liking for office sex.

So, after hurriedly changing into beach clothes and grabbing a towel, he flees the scene. It’d be criminal to spend the day inside anyway. 

It’s sunny outside, and the splashing of the waves calls to Orlando like the smell of crème brulée does to Sean. Orlando gets temporarily distracted from his self-assigned task when he reaches the beach, when salt water licks up his ankles and other people’s dogs chase each other in front of him. 

Eventually, he does fish out his mobile and while he continues walking down the beach he calls his aunt Alethea first. She soaks up gossip like a sponge. 

And of course, oh yes, she has heard of the McKinnons and Orlando is hopeful for a moment. Then however, she proceeds to telling him how she met Kieran and his fiancée at a gala dinner last summer and how she always thought that this cheap blond trollop never was good enough for such a charming and good looking young man. And after thus having proven to her nephew that she has a questionable taste in men, she talks about the lobster that was served at that dinner and how she is certain that it gave her food poisoning.

As per usual, Orlando has difficulties ending that call but dutifully soldiers on right after by phoning his second cousin Jonathan. 

He tells Orlando that he knows people (that itself isn’t surprising, he knows _everyone_ ) who did business with Cameron McKinnon. Jonathan would, too, if pressed but he insists that he would never play golf with the man.

Orlando’s great aunt Amanda has never heard of the McKinnons, but Orlando still has her on the phone for twenty minutes. She is more than a little infatuated with Sean and wants to know en detail how ‘that tasty blond hunk of yours’ is doing. At least Orlando’s aunt Amanda has good taste.

After that conversation, he loses track a little, which is what he gets from calling his cousin Tennessee. 

She not only has about six children, literally fighting each other for the phone, but she also seems to have a tea party going on every time he calls her house. For a good long while Orlando’s end of the conversation consists of a lot of ‘yes, yes’es and various grunts and the frantic effort to sift through the scrapyards full of more or less useful information.

He gets himself some icecream while his scatterbrained brother in law ‘let’s see, let’s see’ Jacob tries to remember a truly vital bit of information about the McKinnons, but as per usual he ends up empty handed. 

He nearly laughs himself silly when he has his cousin Jasper on the phone afterwards, wants to smother himself with his beach towel when he makes the mistake of calling his always sorrowful niece Lola, wishes he brought a pen and a notebook when he finally gets through to the fountain of information that is his mother Sonia.

It’s a good while later when he finally slips his phone back into the pockets of his shorts and rubs his slightly abused ear absentmindedly. Stopping at the water once again, he contemplates whether anyone would look at him strangely if he just dunked his head into the ocean now and it produced steam.

Somewhere during his conversations, he got turned around and now finds that he isn’t that far away from his starting point again, the hotel clearly outlined against the ever blue early afternoon sky.

“Fancy meeting you here,” someone says, and Orlando would know that voice anywhere. 

A smile on his face already, he turns around to find Sean standing not six feet away from him. He has changed into shorts and a t-shirt (white and powder blue), is licking ice cream (strawberry) and generally looks like the perfect embodiment of an inconspicuous tourist.

“You have terribly amazing timing,” Orlando says, impressed. “I just finished my last call.”

“Oh, I know that,” Sean replies easily. “I have been following you for a while.” 

Orlando gives him a look. 

“That is not creepy at all.”

“Whatever. You know I am scared of your family, even across the pond.”

Orlando smirks. 

“Incidentally, auntie Amanda sends her love.”

Sean’s eyes widen, and for a second he even forgets to lick his icecream. Orlando snickers and steps a little closer to Sean, nudging him to walk on.

“The last time we saw her, at that birthday party, she grabbed my arse,” Sean says. “Repeatedly.”

“She is a sweet old woman in a wheelchair for heaven’s sake!”

Sean scoffs, then licks his icecream.

“Which of course gives her a free pass for fondling her grandnephew’s significant other, I see.”

Orlando stops and pulls his beach towel from his shoulder. 

“If you don’t stop slagging off my relatives, I won’t let you sit with me. You’ll get sand on your Armanis.”

Sean looks scandalised and shuts up, Orlando pats the free space on the towel next to him invitingly. Sean sits down, maybe a little closer than he has to, and looks at Orlando enquiringly.

“So, what did your family tell you?”

“Well, first of all I got the distinct impression than no one really _likes_ Cameron McKinnon.”

“No news there.”

“Well, no. He is apparently terribly rude, has a spectacularly short fuse, and he is said to have threatened people to throttle them on more than one occasion. My cousin Stuart is also certain that he actually got into quite a few fistfights, though that was a decade or so ago.”

“Absolutely charming.”

“Yeah, for some years now, he seems to, or at least tries to behave. My aunt Marjorie thinks it’s because he has to do some sort of court appointed anger management thing, but she just watches too much TV. My mum says that he’s desperate to climb the social ladder now and that’s why he’s so tame these days, relatively speaking.”

“And paying for a big show of a wedding. Hm.”

“There is more,” Orlando promises and looks skywards as he tries to recollect it all. “Apparently his own marriage is one of convenience but he religiously goes to every ballet production that Ali stars in. He plays golf but never for money, has a collection of antique watches that my uncle Horace would kill for and – how is that for telling hobbies – he owns a surprisingly profitable boxing gym in the North of Glasgow.”

Mentally he fastforwards through all his conversations once more, and when he is satisfied that he left nothing out, he turns to look at Sean again. 

Sean, in turn, is staring at him with slightly parted lips, looking as if Orlando just performed a tightrope act in front of him.

Orlando tilts his head questioningly. 

“What?” 

“And you ask me why I am afraid of your family. They are like the fucking Gestapo.”

“I keep telling you that I get shunned at family gatherings for not chin-wagging enough,” Orlando says with a shrug and resolute seriousness. “You never believe me.”

Sean shakes his head again, but then he returns to the subject at hand.

“So, Cameron McKinnon has a temper, but he also has enough pull to get away with it.”

“Which basically makes him the evil twin of my grandfather Earnest.”

“Was he the one responsible for demolishing the East Wing of your house?”

“Sean, don’t be an out-of-order forget-me-not. I told you that was a stray German bomb.”

“Oh, of course.”

Generally speaking, Sean’s willingness to believe anything that comes out of Orlando’s mouth doesn’t stop at the involvement of Nazi bombers. It’s just that he has seen pictures of the house, still fully intact, taken in the late 1950s. He has also heard that Orlando’s grandfather Earnest fancied himself to be a chemist.

For a moment Orlando frowns at Sean, then he says with a shrug, 

“Anyway, it’s not like we filed a claim with Lloyds. Which, coincidentally, brings me to the question: What did you find out?”

Sean doesn’t answer immediately but fishes a neatly folded piece of paper out of his backpocket. He squints a little at his own handwriting, and Orlando thinks that it’s a pity that he has been arrested for public indecency already this week. He feels inclined to snog Sean stupid every single time Sean is a little too vain to put on his reading glasses. He doesn’t though but instead leans over to peek at Sean’s notes.

“The ring is insured with Lloyd’s alright,” Sean starts. “As is the rest of the family’s jewellery and pretty much everything else they own. Lloyd’s has been informed of the theft, though no claim has been filed yet. I asked my mate whether there was anything odd about the insurance itself, but he said there wasn’t. If anything, the ring seems to be a little underinsured.”

Orlando pulls a face. 

“That doesn’t sound too promising, does it?”

“I wasn’t done yet, Hastings,” Sean replies with a smile. “While you were discussing my character traits with your aunt –“

“Actually she wanted to know whether I satisfy you in bed.”

“I don’t even want to know whether you just made that up. Just don’t tell me. Anyway, I also called a few people I know up North –“

“’Criminal element’ people?”

“Business associates. Not everyone up North is a thug, you know.”

“Dull. And probably not true.”

“They were more helpful than your niece Lola, I bet.”

“She is back to hating her boyfriend again. I have no idea why she thinks her life is an adaptation of ‘Pride and Prejudice. I mean, to begin with, he doesn’t even remotely look like Colin –”

“Focus, Lando,” Sean interrupts him. 

He looks down at his notes like they are the breadcrumbs that might lead him out of the scary forest inhabited by gingerbread witches and overly affectionate great-aunts. 

Orlando looks curious.

“Anything else then?”

“Well, McKinnon Industries seems to be continuously growing. But there has been a bit of a heartstop moment late last year, during their stock market launch.”

“Well, that’s a start. But if the launch was a disaster, I doubt half a million could do much good.”

“I’d sleep much sounder, I can tell you that much. Especially since it’d be my own money, not connected to the company. It seems though that this just was nothing permanent. This other mate of mine said that buying McKinnon shares today would equal buying a Mercedes.”

“Bit on the boring side but rock solid?” 

Orlando sighs and lays back, resting the weight of his upper body on his elbows like the news just drained him of all his energy.

“A Mercedes isn’t really a gangster’s choice of car, is it?”

“You can still get ticketed for speeding.”

“Speeding? What are you talking about?”

“It’s illegal, just like theft. Hey, don’t give me that look. _You_ decided to continue this metaphor.”

“Well, then let’s forward it to the scrapyard without delay.”

“The only other thing I heard,” Sean says, steering them back on track as he glances at his notes, “are some rumours about how his firm grew so fast. Cameron McKinnon may not be a social darling, but he seems to make up for it by being really fucking good at hostile takeovers.”

Orlando looks slightly more interested, his mind instantly trying to spin it from there.

“Maybe the money is just a bonus on the side,” he says. “Maybe he just gets off on screwing others?”

“His own daughter? I don’t know.”

Orlando hums noncommittally, obviously not really attached to this particular version of the story yet. 

“He is still the best suspect,” Sean says, unworried. “Maybe we’ll learn more tonight at the rehearsal dinner, hm?”

“Yeah, maybe,” Orlando agrees easily.

He doesn’t say anything else but looks at the ocean thoughtfully. Sean lies down next to him and shuts his eyes against the brightness of the sun. 

Orlando’s way of thinking bears strong resemblence to the processing of a crime scene, or the search of a suspect’s house. It’s utterly methodical and thorough, can’t be rushed, and almost always produces results. By dissecting the components, he reconstructs plots and motives the same way he constructs lies and alternative realities. 

People usually find that a bit peculiar or off-putting. Sean finds it intensely calming. He usually dozes off during, Orlando’s unrushed contemplations are better than any steady nightlight.

Orlando surveys the information they gathered and processed carefully and bit by bit, but he doesn’t feel like Archimedes of Syracuse. Maybe it’s the heat of the sun, maybe it’s the fact that he has only slept for a couple of hours last night.

He laughs quietly when he turns to Sean to say something accordingly and finds that Sean has reached that particular conclusion a while ago – he has his eyes closed, is breathing steadily and is obviously asleep.

Orlando watches him for a little while as Sean’s chest rises and falls slowly, his hands loosely folded and resting on his stomach. He thinks about things that have nothing at all to do with the case. He only gently nudges Sean awake when he notices the skin on his shins turning a little red from the sun. 

They get up, and Sean follows Orlando back to their hotel, not unlike a sleepwalker, and looks ridiculously grateful when Orlando points him towards the bed. He is asleep again (face down on the pillow, nose an inch away from the complementary chocolate), even before Orlando has toed of his shoes, let alone slumped down next to him.

A couple of hours later, Orlando wakes up well rested with Sean’s head on his stomach. Sean is reading a gardening magazine, and even though he denies it, Orlando is positive that he ate both of their chocolates; his kiss tastes like it.

Once more they agree that the rehearsal dinner is the perfect opportunity to verify their suspicions. Also, Sean contemplates whether actual wedding dinner food will be served as well. He’d like some lobster. 

Orlando of says it’s also the perfect opportunity to see kilts up close. Oh yeah, and dress up, which is really the whole point of a wedding, isn’t it.

He picks a Simon Spurr three-piece suit, in comparison to which Sean’s sleek Ralph Lauren Black Label is of a slightly darker grey. He also unsuccessfully argues that he is already wearing one item more than Sean and hence could ditch the tie. The following shoe debate ends in the usual way; of course Orlando has a pair of Chucks with him that fit the green of his (and Sean’s) tie very nicely.

When they arrive at the restaurant – a quite tasteful place of subdued class and style –, they are relieved to see that this time it’s not a costume party. Everyone is dressed in more or less attractive formal wear, and Sean has some trouble recognising some of the former inhabitants of Wonderland. 

It takes him twenty minutes alone to realise that he is sitting at the same table with the caterpillar for instance who has lost his hookah and his overall purpleness in favour of a crooked smile, a blond Mohawk and a kilt. 

By that time, Orlando (who is much better with remembering faces) is already deep in conversation with the ex-caterpillar and the March hare (only looking fractionally more respectable now that he is wearing a tux).

“I really like the kilts,” Orlando says just when Sean zones back in. “I was afraid they’d look like my granddad’s curtain cloth but they do have something about them.”

“Why, thank you,” says the caterpillar.

“Yeah,” says the March hare, looking unconvinced. “I don’t know about these stockings though. That’s wool isn’t it? Do you only ever really feel like a man if your garments are scratchy, I wonder?”

“That _is_ a good question,” Orlando replies, and Sean is a bit incredulous to note that he sounds like he actually means it. “That makes you wonder whether Mel Gibson would’ve made ‘Braveheart’ if he’d been allergic to wool.”

“Or allergic to plaid.”

“Good point.” 

“Do you think Mel Gibson wore underwear while shooting that film? I think he did,” says the ex-caterpillar with obvious dismay. 

Both Sean and Orlando look at him like they just found Orlando’s long lost twin. Sean sees absolute glee on Orlando’s features and supposes his own lean more towards mild horror.

Orlando and the two ex-convicts of Wonderland are discussing the merits of historical movies, and Sean remembers distantly the goal of a rehearsal dinner (which has nothing to do with Mel Gibson’s knickers). 

Before he can return to their investigation, however, he falls victim to a drive-by flirt courtesy of Maggi and Fiona. They smile at him and touch his shoulder, and for some reason Sean lets himself get roped into a heated discussion of the bridesmaids’ dresses – peach coloured and tight in all the right places.

Both Maggi and Fiona stare at him. Apparently he has said the last bit out loud.

“Peach?” Fiona repeats. “Do I look like I want to be seen dead in a dress the colour of a fucking fruit?”

“And tight in all the right places alright,” Maggi laughs. “I am not wearing any underwear under these, are you, Fi?”

“How could I?” says Fiona with arched eyebrows.

Sean thinks that this entire lack of underwear thing has to be a theme of the wedding, but he is careful enough to keep his mouth shut this time.

“I’d like to see one of the blokes wearing something like this, you know,” says Maggi and pulls at the front of her dress as if to check whether her breasts are still there (they are).

“I think you two look lovely,” Sean offers because apparently he has a deathwish and needs to draw attention to himself.

Fiona looks sceptical, Maggi secretly pleased.

“On _my_ wedding,” Fiona says, “I am gonna have all the guys in skin-tight leotards, that much is certain. Probably with sequin, because man, that itches like a bitch.”

“Who are you punishing with that though?” asks Maggi. “I for one think I’d go permanently blind if I had to watch my Dad in something like that.”

Both Fiona and Sean have to bite back a grin at the involuntary shudder going through Maggi.

“Well?” asks Maggi, obviously expecting more of a reaction from Sean.

“David Bowie could pull that off?” Sean offers tentatively.

“Why would I invite David Bowie to my wedding?” Fiona wants to know as if Sean has suddenly gone completely insane.

“Isn’t he the guy with those insane heels?” ponders Maggi.

“He is the one with the absolutely fantastic voice, stupid,” cuts in Ceana, appearing out of nowhere like a tigress from the bushes. 

Sean is a bit startled by that, and for a moment, he fears that all feral women of the party are closing in on him. Then he realises that Ceana has been sitting next to him the whole time and he has just ignored her in favour of the soup de jour.

“No argument from me,” he says peacably.

Fiona and Maggi temporarily agree to cease fire in order to shake their heads at Sean and Ceana. Maggi then pulls Fiona along because apparently right before the food the dancefloor _has_ to be tested.

When they are gone Sean asks, “So, a fellow Bowie fan?” 

“Not necessarily,” Ceana replies, slurping her soup. “But I can admire brilliance when I see it. I’d kill for his absolute stage presence.” 

“You’re a performer then?”

“I dance. Together with Ali actually, it’s how we met. There’s no bonding experience like shared tears over absolutely sadistic choreographers.”

“Quite like the bonds forged in trenches, I imagine.”

“Oh, much worse, believe me,” Ceana insists and her blue eyes convey real horror. “Soldiers don’t have to stand on their toes all day long, do they?”

“I suppose not. There is the bit about getting shot at and possibly dying working in their favour however.”

Ceana shakes her head and sighs. 

“Clearly you have never been backstage at a ballet.”

Sean chuckles.

“Never had the pleasure. Would you care to enlighten me?”

Ceana’s back straightens, and there is something in her eyes, like all floodlights going on at once. What follows isn’t so much just a detailed report of the clockwork mechanism of showbusiness. It’s an study into characters and relationships that is as insightful as it is hilarious. Ceana has her colleagues down perfectly – accents, speech patterns and behaviour – and she acts out bits of every day insanity, playing all the parts herself. Sean is absolutely enthralled and laughing until he is close to crying.

He only notices the appetisers standing in front of him when Ceana excuses herself to visit the loo. Orlando dares him to try tasting the wine without weeping with joy, and as per usual his palate is right. He eats and drinks and with one ear listens to Orlando’s conversation with the ex-caterpillar and the March Hare (about skydiving now). 

Somewhere along the way he also remembers (again) that they are here on a mission. 

Mr. McKinnon, however, is not kind enough to do something particularly revealing, in fact he just eats and looks like he knows someone spit into his food. Someone else at the table catches Sean’s attention easily, however, and he smiles to himself as he watches Kieran flirt with one of the bridesmaids. Much to her delight he makes a rose appear from behind her ear.

“Ah, Kier’s famous magic fingers,” Ceana says as she sits down next to him again and her eyes follow his gaze. “Never fail to amaze.”

“I was admiring his attention to detail this time,” Sean replies with amusement, noting how the colour of the flower perfectly matches the smitten bridesmaid’s dress.

“This time?” Ceana grins at him. “So you had the pleasure. Why, Sean, naughtier than I thought.”

Sean looks scandalised for a second, and Ceana laughs delightedly.

“Gotcha,” she says. “Don’t feel bad, he’s always been an absolutely terrible flirt. First time I met him, he’d barely said hi and already tried to get it on with me.”

“You should probably take that as a compliment.”

“Oh, I do, as much as a bird being chased by a cat takes that as a compliment.” She shakes her head, but the smile on her face is benevolent as she watches Kieran. “It’s just in his nature, I guess, he can’t help it. He flirts with absolutely everything with a pulse.”

Sean doesn’t even need to turn his head to know that Orlando is a. listening and b. trying very hard to not laugh himself silly. He reflects that his ego is healthy enough to survive this.

“So I noticed,” he says with a chuckle.

“Mind you,” Ceana adds, her attention now divided between her plate and Sean. “Guess whose nimble fingers and their straying tendencies lost him his fiancée recently? On the plus side, if you invite him to a party you always have a magician in the house, absolutely gratis, and the chance for a quick grope in a closet.”

“And what would a proper bash be without a magic show?”

“Oh, so you prefer entertainment to be a little more grown up? Strippers and pole dancing, or is it a violin concerto and a good glass of vino?”

“If anything, I rate a party by the whiskey available.”

“1968 vintage Glendronach Single Malt,” Orlando all but moans, and it sounds like the love declaration it is.

Ceana raises a perfect eyebrow. Sean introduces Orlando as a man with a fine palate but a tendency to overrate Speyside whiskey. Orlando is of course righteously offended. As it is bound to happen with a subject as important as this one, other people at their table join the conversation without invitation and with sometimes completely ludicrous opinions ( _Irish_ whisky. Seriously now.).

Orlando is about to mix some tranquilisers into Sean’s drink – he does get agitated when confronted with tastable ignorance – when the distinct sound of cutlerly clanging against glass is to be heard. 

Heads are turned towards the main table where Cameron McKinnon has gotten to his feet and holds the aforementioned glass and a spoon and obviously is about to hold something else, a speech that is.

“Dad, this is just the rehearsal,” Ali reminds him with a smile that is ninety percent touched, ten percent worried.

“I know, I know,” says her father with a responding smile that looks somewhat misplaced on his face. “I will make it short.”

Orlando is sure that he hears Kieran scoff in response, but when he glances at him, Kieran’s features are carefully neutral, and he is looking at his father with mild interest.

“I just like to make use of the opportunity,” says Mr. McKinnon, voice loud enough to be heard by everyone, “to welcome you officially. And since tomorrow it is my daughter’s special day and nothing is to distract from this,” out of his mouth it sounds more like a threat than excitement, “I’d like to use this moment to make an announcement that concerns the entire family.”

He pauses for effect and long enough for Orlando and Sean to share a look. 

Is this the moment where the villain of the story comes clean, driven to a confession of his crime by the love, joy and festivity around him?

“This is a very good week for the McKinnon family,” Mr. McKinnon continues, “because of this wedding and because this is also the moment I am proud to announce that the contracts to our biggest project yet, the McGinty Venture, have been signed this afternoon.”

Orlando has no idea who or what McGinty is, but it seems pretty much everyone else knows or at least knows how big this is. Mr. McKinnon might not be a social darling, but the wide eyes all around, the occasional applause even, are clear evidence that his sense for business is considered outstanding.

“Now, it was a little bit more difficult than a simple ‘I do’,” he nods at his daughter and at his soon-to-be son in law (who looks about as confused by all this as Orlando feels), “but I can assure you that the contract is ours. And now let us enjoy the rest of the evening, now that it is certain that I can actually pay for it!”

The entire room laughs at his last words, and glasses are raised in his direction. Orlando mentally squints a little, trying to adjust his view on McKinnon and failing to regain a clear picture.

“I wouldn’t have pegged him for the joking kind,” Sean says, and Orlando can hear in his voice that he, too, is a bit thrown. 

“Oh, he jokes alright,” says the March Hare. “You just make sure that you’re never laughing _at_ him.”

“I take it there has never been any question that he wouldn’t be able to pay?” 

Orlando’s noncommittal tone of voice can be taken as both, a serious inquest and a continuation of the joke. Ceana and the ex-caterpillar clearly take it as the latter.

“Trust me, he is _loaded_ ,” says Ceana. “He could easily pay for a wedding of this scale for every single Playboy bunny currently in the Playboy mansion.”

“Out of the petty cash,” adds the caterpillar.

“Hm,” says Orlando and gives Sean a very, very meaningful look.

“Indeed,” Sean agrees with a barely concealed sigh.

“Actually I don’t even think this contract is important to him because of the money,” Ceana says thoughtfully. “I suppose it promises to get him recognition from those who are so absolutely tightfisted with their approval, if you catch my drift.”

“Social acceptance is a powerful motivator,” Orlando agrees with a nod. Then, looking at Sean, he adds, “There is no way he would risk a scandal. Especially if he doesn’t need the money.”

“Indeed,” Sean repeats. He shakes his head and considers whether drowning himself in his wine is too melodramatic. “Well, bugger.”

Both Ceana and the caterpillar look slightly befuddled by Sean’s mood suddenly dropping to arctic temperatures. 

Sean dabs his mouth with his napkin and gets up. He holds out his hand to Orlando and says,

“If I got that right then the dancefloor is open for rehearsal as well. C’mon, dance with me.”

Orlando takes Sean’s hand and gets to his feet. 

A nondescript waltz gently drifting down from the speakers, and there are a few people on the dancefloor already, mostly using it to stand close, sway and possibly chin-wag a bit. Sean lets Orlando lead, and in return he shoulders the responsibility of addressing what needs to be said.

“So, it seems we are the worst investigators that have ever investigated.”

“I’m inclined to agree with you,” Orlando says with a nod.

Sean sighs and briefly leans his forehead against Orlando’s, closing his eyes. 

“Do you think there is any chance he did it anyway?” he asks. “If not for the money then, I don’t know, just for the fun of it? Because he lost a bet?” 

It sounds ridiculous, and Sean knows it. Orlando hums noncommitally but then says,

“Well, I reckon we just lack the most important thing a good sleuth needs.”

Sean arches a brow. 

“A femme fatale making his life hell? A cash flow drought? Liver cirrhosis?”

“I meant gut feeling, a built-in drowsing rod for villains,” Orlando says with a chuckle. “Liver cirrhosis? You think about medical conditions when we’re watching Bogie movies?”

“Mostly, I think about clothes and lament the fact that these days most men don’t wear hats anymore.”

“That _is_ tragic, I hear you.”

Orlando lets his hand rest on Sean’s shoulder, Sean’s is steady on his hip. 

They dance like this for a while, and quietly Sean quotes Bogart lines at Orlando, and they are only vaguely fitting at best. Orlando’s laughter is equally quiet, and he reckons that a detective’s gut feeling probably isn’t the most important feeling in the world to have.

Still, it is pretty certain at this point that Sherlock Holmes and Philipp Marlowe will be crying themselves to sleep tonight. 

They return to their places just in time for more food to be served which leads to Sean commenting that this evening isn’t half-bad. Orlando shakes his head but smiles indulgently, and for the record, it is _he_ who very nearly moans with pleasure when the entrées are served.

Sean is certainly not disagreeing with him. He gets sautéed shrimp and scallops in a lemon butter sauce, served with vermouth scented basmati rice. It is nothing short of delicious, and he seriously doubts that Orlando’s tamari glaced Atlantic salmon can compare. Orlando looks blissed out though, and so do the other guests, and for a while there is very little conversation at their table, it’s more of a huge orgy for the tastebuds. 

It is after this that Billy and Ali get up from their chairs and step onto the dancefloor. There is no music playing yet, and Ali has to clear her throat very loudly twice before the murmuring and clattering dies down to a minimum. Billy is holding her hand and is grinning broadly.

“Speech!” shouts someone.

“Shut it, Craig,” Ali shouts back. 

Billy looks at her adoringly. Then he obviously remembers that he indeed is here to address the crowd.

“Hello everyone by the way,” he says flippantly. “Now, tradition dictates that at the rehearsal dinner you thank the people who made it all possible. Of course Ali and I want to say thank you to our parents for the obvious reasons –“

“Thank you!” Ali repeats, a little louder and smiling.

“But most of all we want to show our appreciation to the one person who slaved over the seating chart –“

“– while Billy and I slept in –”

“– who booked the church and wouldn’t take no for an answer from that slightly deaf priest –“

“– while Billy and I... did other things in bed that might have made the church booking a little harder yet.” 

Billy gives his bride a horribly overdone scandalised look, and she kisses his cheek. He kisses her nose in return and only then continues,

“To cut a long story that would read like the novellisation of ‘The Wedding planner’ short: Thank you, Kieran! Now get up and get over here.”

“I don’t think I want to,” Kieran says with a smile but pushes his chair back anyway.

“We wanted to do something for you in return,” Ali says. “Now, I was all for an Amazon gift certificate, but Billy insisted that we had to do something a little more special.”

“Oh God,” says Kieran, much to the audiences amusement.

“Hey, I resent that,” Billy protests laughingly.

“Lads, now is the time,” Ali says and on her command five men, all wearing kilts, join Billy and her on the dancefloor. They take position by forming a half circle around Kieran who buries his face in his hand.

“Now, we’re Scottish,” Billy continues, somewhat redundantly, “so we thought, what a better way to thank a fellow Scotsman than a traditional Highland dance in his honour? And before we begin, let me tell all of you, this is a very difficult dance. It may not look like it to an untrained eye, but we worked really hard on this.”

“Ali made us do bootcamp,” pipes up the ex-caterpillar.

“So, there is gonna be no laughing, you hear me? Even if some of us might fall on our faces.”

The sound of bagpipe music comes from the speakers and Billy takes his position in between the five other men. What follows is – even for the untrained eye – a quite impressive dance choreography, all the more so since the dancers perform while practically standing on their tiptoes. Ali stands on the sidelines like she was the trainer of an Olympic team. 

But of course she has to smile when the traditional routine is interrupted again and again by solo performances of the individual dancers that have little to do with traditional dancing. The caterpillar does some sort of breakdance move that proves to everyone in the audience that he is in fact wearing boxers under his kilt. Billy’s charming dance solo, in which he treats Kieran like a stripper might treat her pole, has even Kieran laughing.

The grande finale has all six of them dancing around Kieran once more, kilts flying and sporrans flapping enthusiastically in front of their groins. But still Kieran – for all he looks the part with kilt, sporran, hose, and even ceremonial dagger – just stands there, looking equally amused and slightly out of place and embarrassed.

“See, that’s why I love weddings,” Orlando whispers to Sean.

Sean hides his grin behind his glass of wine.

“I’m not sold on the stockings.” 

Next to Orlando the March hare interjects, “That sporran though, that’s neat. Safe place for all your valuables while you have your hands free in, you know, the odd stolen moment here and there.”

He waggles his eyebrows at Orlando, expecting a chuckle at least. 

But somehow, his odd choice of words makes things fall into place in Orlando’s and Sean’s brains.

Kieran is still standing in the middle of the dancefloor and for once doesn’t seem to know what do do with his hands. He folds them over his sporran.

All the background noise falls away as Orlando and Sean look at each other. Just like that the fog clears, and all vital bits of information, gathered over the last two days, rearrange themselves into the right order. 

Like someone famous once said, you need all pieces of the puzzle to be able to see the full picture. 

_“The ring has been in the family for four generations.”_

_“It’s always handed down to the first one to tie the knot.”_

_“Guess whose nimble fingers lost him his fiancée recently?”_

_“My Dad insisted on putting the ring into the hotel safe and put it in right before we went to dinner.”_

_“My father calls me the embodiment of sloth. I like to think of it as a lifestyle.”_

_“He is a party planner whose A-game includes magicking tiny liquor bottles from behind your ear, Sean!”_

_He snaps the box shut in Fiona’s hand. She bitches at him. Maggi bitches at her. Mrs. McKinnon bitches at all three of them._

_“It’s all about creating illusions, using distractions.”_

_He hands the box to the chief of security who practically throws it into the safety deposit box without looking inside._

_“Billy made us do a spontaneous ‘dress rehearsal’ straight after dinner.”_

_“All the official wedding attire is locked away in Rosalind’s room now. I couldn’t get to the kilts even if I wanted to.”_

Orlando and Sean stare at one another. 

Orlando blinks in slow motion. 

Sean’s jaw drops.

“Oh my God.” 

“I don’t fucking believe it.”

Orlando gives Sean his best ‘well duh’ look, and at the same time his eyes widen in quiet alarm. Sean doesn’t stop to interpret that look, his epiphany slammed the door open a bit too loudly.

“I know who has the ring!” he says emphatically.

“The ring?” the March hare asks and leans in, practically sitting on Orlando’s lap.

Orlando kicks Sean under the table. Sean ignores it and excitedly pulls at Orlando’s sleeve.

“It should have been so fucking obvious! The security video, the unplanned dress rehearsal right afterwards. Where do you put a ring that you just nicked when you are doing an allnighter, playing fucking dressup doll? Not in the pocket of your discarded trousers, that is for sure.”

“The sporran,” Orlando deduces automatically, getting swept along. “Jesus. And he couldn’t get to it again until tonight.” 

“How did we not see this earlier?”

“See what?” cuts in the March hare, looking more and more confused. “Whose sporran? What are you on about?”

Orlando shakes his head, cursing the slowness of his mind. 

“Bloody magic tricks. He made things appear and disappear right in front of our eyes. How did we not see that?”

“Like he said, it’s all about creating illusions, using distractions.”

“Shit.”

“What are you two talking about?” 

The March hare is still half a step behind. He stumbles to a halt, then takes the leap. His eyes widen almost comically. 

“You mean _Kieran_?”

“Shit,” Orlando says once more.

“Yeah,” Sean agrees. “He had it all along.”

“Kieran?” repeats the March hare. His incredulity raises his voice considerably. “Kieran has – Kieran stole the ring?!”

Silence falls like someone unexpectedly muted the telly.

It is unfortunate that it’s at this exact moment that the music paused. 

It is inevitable that everyone is now staring at them, specifically the March hare. The man’s face seems to be permanently frozen in shock as if he has looked into the eyes of the Medusa.

Sean looks at Kieran who is still standing on the dancefloor amongst the other men of the groom. And the truth is right there on his face.

It stops being the remake of a Leslie Nielsen movie at exactly that moment. 

Sean sees it in Kieran’s expression, hears it in Orlando’s sharp intake of breath, in the eerie quiet of the absolute calm before the storm.

“How dare you!” 

Cameron McKinnon is on his feet and the look he gives the March hare from across the room is murderous. 

“How dare you insinuate something like this! If you repeat this in public I will sue you for slander!”

His voice thunders through the room, but the March hare doesn’t even seem to hear it as his mind puts together the last pieces of the puzzle.

“Kieran took it when we were in the vault room,” he says as he works it out. “He had no place to hide it because Billy’s impromptu dress rehearsal came right after. Instead of putting it in his pocket he must’ve slipped it into his sporran.”

“I will take you for every penny you own!” McKinnon bellows. “And that will be the fucking least of your problems, believe me!”

His entire body tenses up, and he looks like he is going to have a go at the March hare right here, right now. 

One word from Ali stops him.

“Kieran?”

Sean and Orlando, and everyone else in the room, hear everything there is in that name, in her voice. Ali looks at her brother like she is dangling from the side of a ship, her fingers barely holding on, and she still expects him to pull her back up, to save her from the sharks.

Kieran says nothing, does nothing. He doesn’t deny the accusation, doesn’t laugh it off, doesn’t mimick his father’s furious indignation. He doesn’t even move. He looks at McKinnon. He doesn’t seem to even hear the plea in his sister’s voice. Like he forgot that she even exists, she or anyone else aside from himself and his father.

Ahab and the big white whale.

“It _was_ you.” 

McKinnon is stating a fact now. The sudden flare of anger is exchanged for a low burning fury: It’s hot and seething and long, long in the making.

Kieran scoffs, but his posture changes, like a boxer going into the defence. 

“Unbelievable, isn’t it? That I should be capable of something –“ he pauses, decades of resentment all crammed up in that one moment, “like this.”

“Is this just one of your fucking stunts to get my attention?” McKinnon demands with impatient, derisive contempt. “Because there is little else you ever care about.”

“It should have been mine in the first place.” 

Kieran’s voice is identical to his father’s now. It’s so full of barely controlled righteous anger, but it’s tainted with something else entirely. Sean doubts he is talking about the ring.

“I don’t even want the stupid ring,” Ali says, and her voice is quivering. “If you wanted it so badly, you could’ve just said so, Kier. You can have it, I don’t want it.”

Kieran looks at her with pity in his eyes and contempt, like they are children again and his sister just doesn’t get it. He doesn’t say anything.

Ali turns away, and Billy puts an arm around her. He doesn’t care about the fucked up family history, his objective is simple, crystal clear and so healthy in comparison.

“Oh, Kieran, how could you?” 

Mrs. McKinnon cries out, but there is no sign of actual shock in her voice. Tears run down her face and effectively ruin her make up, but the look in her eyes makes Sean feel like a fucking naive softy in comparison.

Suddenly, the rest of the wedding guests resurface like survivors of a ship wreck, gasps for air and murmurs, disbelief and instant judgement, pity, horror and even ill-fitting amusement bobbing up with them.

Inmidst all this, Kieran opens his sporran and takes the ring out. Its diamonds twinkle in the lights as he looks at it with detachment. Even from afar, it looks perfect, maybe a bit too much so to feel real, the symbol of everything this wedding was set out to be, planned to the very last detail by Kieran himself.

Now, the bride is crying real tears, his mother fake ones, and everyone else is caught somewhere in the chaos in between.

With a careless flick of his wrist, he tosses the ring into the air and for the fraction of a second it feels like a perverted version of the bouquet throwing ritual. It’s Mr. McKinnon who catches it, the precious family heirloom disappears in his big hand.

“I didn’t even want the stupid thing,” Kieran says with almost exactly the same words his sister used. “Keep it for yourself, like everything else.”

The March hare belatedly revives. He looks at Sean and Orlando with huge eyes and seems too anxious to get the pacing of the cop show finale right to actually notice the family drama that unfolds right in front of him. With his voice still raised, like his power is just suddenly switched on again, he asks,

“Shouldn’t someone call the cops right about now?”

The last word is still on his lips when he suddenly looks pained, and Sean is pretty sure that Orlando now kicked him in the shin.

“No one will call anyone,” Mr. McKinnon decides, his words like artillery fire aimed at the March hare. 

He is still staring at his son with 25 to life worth of contemptuous loathing. And yet the venom obviously isn’t potent enough to match his keen instinct of self-preservation. It’s there in his eyes, the rigid line of his jaw. As much as he might even want to see his only son in prison, the desire isn’t as strong as the one wanting to keep this affair out of the gutter press’s hungry jaws.

“The ring did not get stolen,” he says, the firmness in his voice forcing a new reality into existence. “We temporarily misplaced it. We found it again in time for the wedding tomorrow. That is all. There was no break in, no theft, no crime. It was a simple misunderstanding. It is now cleared up.”

He is still standing, towering over his guests and demanding instant obedience. Sean is good at many things but not at following orders from arrogant megalomaniacs. He wants to object – unwise, not his problem, not his decision – on principle. Orlando’s hand on his thigh makes him swallow the protest that is burning on his tongue.

No one else objects either. Kieran is still standing on the dancefloor, alone now and looking like he is lost at sea.

And it is then that the most curious thing of the evening happens. 

The caterpillar starts dancing again. 

It looks completely ridiculous. The style of the highland dance has something peculiar to begin with, and now it is performed by a single dancer who obviously isn’t very good at it, and there isn’t even any music playing. But none of that stops him. He’s on the balls of his feet and going through the same steps they’ve all seen performed earlier, he raises his arms over his head and is a demented ballerina in a kilt with a mohawk. 

He looks pointedly at Billy, and his eyes are more than a little determined. He nudges Billy, and Billy shakes his head like any sane person would. But he is grinning as if the caterpillar is Buddha and just gifted him with the wisest advice. 

He looks at Ali, and she looks at him, and it’s that perfect movie moment, except that they are standing between a magpie brother and an insane and crappy dancer. Billy takes Ali’s hand and twirls her, and like that they are dancing as well. 

The rest of the groom’s party joins in, the same routine as before, now with bride and groom as the centrepiece. It’s just a few moments, and someone turns the music back on, the same bagpipe melody as before blaring from the speakers.

Fiona and Maggi get up from their chairs, and Ceana and the rest of the bridesmaids as well, and they join the others, improvising steps or imitating the men’s routine. The dancefloor gets more crowded by the second, and when the next song starts, a mix of highland tunes and hardrock, it has everyone jumping up and down, around Billy and Ali. Everyone is singing along on the top of their voices, like you would do it to the radio when driving through a stormy night.

Sean and Orlando are the only ones at their table who remain on their seats. 

It takes both of them a moment to be able to drag their eyes away from the dancefloor and look at one another. Orlando’s hand is still on Sean’s thigh like he has forgotten it there. Quietly but with an unusual intensity he enquires, 

“What has just happened?” 

Sean opens his mouth but he can’t think of a single thing to say. He just shrugs helplessly.

Orlando shakes his head and turns his gaze back to the dancing crowd.

“And you ask me why we never visit your parents. Clearly they put something in the water up North.”

“Sheffield isn’t Scotland,” Sean replies automatically. “We don’t do things like that back home, trust me.”

Orlando is still shaking his head, and Sean can see that his eyes have found Mr. and Mrs. McKinnon now. She holds a small mirror in her hand as she restores her make up, he is attacking his piece of cake on his plate as if he was gutting a deer.

Kieran is not dancing with the others either, but he is watching from the sidelines. The hardness that has made him look so much like his father has vanished from his face again, making room for a nondescript, almost vacant expression, like a default screensaver switching on on a computer monitor. 

Sean covers Orlando’s hand on his thigh with his own. The feeling of his knuckles under his fingers is a tiny piece of utter familiarity on this very, very weird evening. 

“You know,” he says slowly, “I suddenly have a lot of compassion for Alice when she first arrived in Wonderland.”

Orlando tears his eyes away from Kieran and from the dancefloor. And the look he gives Sean is a very familiar one of amusement, affection and the heralding of upcoming mockery, even if it is a bit timid still.

“Oh, you’d look so nice in that blue dress. You do have the legs for it, too.”

“I think so, too. Thanks for noticing.”

“I don’t know about the whole prim and proper thing she has going for herself though.”

“That’s because _your_ moral code is closer to the one of the Cheshire cat,” Sean replies dead-pan even though it’s complete bollocks.

“As long as it’s just my ethics and not my waistline.”

Sean leans a little closer as if they weren’t already separated from the rest of the party anyway.

“Trust me, you’re perfect. No one even comes close.”

Orlando’s eyes soften, and he tilts his head.

“Why, Miss Alice, are you flirting with me?”

“Well, it _is_ a wedding after all, isn’t it?”

Orlando scoffs good-naturedly. 

“A wedding, a friendly gathering of cleptomaniacs and crazy people – what’s the difference?”

Sean looks at Billy and Ali, they are still in the middle of the dancefloor, still surrounded by wildly jerking and jumping people and yet dancing to their own melody, in their own time.

“Do you want to get out of here?” he asks spontaneously. “I think the eating part is over anyway, so what’s the point of staying?”

Orlando nods and gets up. 

“I agree, I think we should leave before the bride and the groom get abducted by an alien spaceship. At this point not even that would surprise me anymore.”

Sean doesn’t reply – because it’s pointless to argue when the facts are so crystal clear. 

They pass the dancefloor on their way out and wave goodbye as they catch Billy’s eye. Billy raises his hand from Ali’s shoulder to return the gesture, and prompted by that, she turns her head. Smiling at them she mouths ‘See you tomorrow’ before she turns all her attention back to her husband-to-be.

As they make their way out, Orlando is back to incredulously shaking his head again. Sean keeps quiet during their short cab ride back, looks out the window as Orlando struggles with a growing feeling of gloominess.

Back in their suite, Orlando heads for the shower straight away. He doesn’t particularly like being alone with his thoughts, or rather with contemplations of this nature. But as he stands under it, warm spray on his shoulders, it seems ridiculous, trying to wash off unease.

He steps out of the bathroom not much later, wearing his pyjama bottoms and Sean’s dark blue robe. His determination to tell this silly case to get lost wavers when he sets eyes on Sean.

Sean has merely taken off his suit jacket and his tie and is sitting on the couch in front of the telly. He switches it off when Orlando approaches, but of course he has been watching the surveillance DVD again. He is trying to find video proof of something he’s finding a little hard to believe still.

Orlando slumps down in the comfortably armchair next to the couch. Resting his head against its cushions, he tries to sum up the atmosphere in the room.

“So, I guess we agree that all in all, this was terribly unsatisfactory.”

“I’ve been waiting for an ‘I told you so’ actually,” Sean says mildly. “You said it was Kieran, didn’t you.”

Orlando’s upper lip curls. 

“Yeah, but that was because too much cheap liquor brings out the German Sheppard in me. Not because I actually suspected him.”

Sean smiles softly. 

“Well, it still counts in my book.”

Orlando appreciates the sentiment, but it still doesn’t change things.

“C’mon, don’t tell me you are happy with how this turned out.” 

“As far as showdowns go this could’ve been better,” Sean admits. “Less Almodovar, more Hitchcock maybe.”

“Something less depressing would’ve been nice,” Orlando pulls a face and shifts in his chair. “I mean, I don’t even like Kieran and _I’m_ bummed. He very nearly ruined the wedding, for heaven’s sake. And it’s not like he is going to prison.” 

Sean considers that for a moment.

“You think it’d have been less depressing if he got arrested?”

“I haven’t got a clue. Seems to happen rather a lot.”

Sean doesn’t correct him but instead gets up and crosses the room to get to the liquor cabinet. Orlando watches as he gets two glasses and for a moment contemplates what to pour them. Generally speaking, Orlando isn’t a friend of Lowland whiskey. If he wanted indulgently sweet stuff, he’d drink sherry. But the bottle Sean picks contains a fourteen year old Glenkinchie, and Orlando thinks the lightness and pleasantness of it might be just the thing to neutralise this lingering bitterness. 

As he is pouring, Sean says, “I think I know what you mean, about Kieran. If you grow up believing that your Dad thinks you’re a fuck up, that should mess nicely with how you live your life.” 

Orlando hums his agreement. 

“I mean I’m all for eccentric hobbies but cleptomania? You don’t have to be a psychologist to know what that says about someone. I wouldn’t want to trade with him. I feel sorry for them all, really. What a huge cockup.”

After handing Orlando his glass, Sean sits down again on the sofa.

“I suppose it is probably not the first time something like this has happened.” 

“Like last month McKinnon senior clobbered a homeless man to death and last year Ali got knocked up by a gypsy?” Orlando guesses, shaking his head. “Some really odd things have occurred in _my_ family as well, believe me, but this?”

“Like that time your aunt Alethea nearly succeeded in nuking her entire family? With cauliflower?”

“I still think that it’s perfectly reasonable to assume that you can cook cauliflower in the microwave. It is not _supposed_ to explode, is it?”

Sean laughs and doesn’t even feign compassion for Orlando’s rightful indignation.

“I mean there was no real damage, aside from the microwave,” Orlando says. “But still I don’t think even then everyone just went back to business as usual as if nothing had happened. You just don’t do that, it’s not healthy.”

“And furthermore, it’s a fucking crap way to end a story. Have these people, has Kieran never heard of a satisfactory climax?”

Instead of replying, Orlando raises his glass to his lips and drinks, eyes not leaving Sean. The bogus disgust on Sean’s face dissolves, he licks his lips, always a telltale sign that he can’t really hold back his laughter.

Orlando can’t help but roll his eyes. 

“I am honestly worried about this family, and you insinuate that I’m only disgruntled because we didn’t get a blaze of glory ending?”

“I’d have preferred a femme fatale trying to off us,” Sean corrects. “But I don’t see whether it’s ‘either – or’ anyway, we should’ve gotten both, the satisfying show-and-tell _and_ the action packed showdown.” 

Sean takes another sip from his drink and lets the taste of it linger on his tongue as he thinks about it. His conclusion is heralded by a small sigh and a shrug. 

“I suppose sweeping things under the rug is an ancient method to keep your house clean. Or at least make it look like it until you stumble over your carpet and break your neck.”

Orlando snorts. 

“I love how your idea of cheering me up involves death by accident.”

“I read an article once about how dangerous it is in one’s own house. Deadly household appliances and so on. Makes you want to never leave the bed again.”

Sean gives Orlando his ‘trufax’ face and raises his glass at the same time as if that lent him more credit.

“I’m not generally opposed to that idea,” Orlando says. “But you’re right.” 

“I am quite often, actually. Far more frequently than you give me credit for.”

Orlando gets up from his chair and takes his whiskey with him. Sean’s eyes are on him as he closes the short distance between them. He sits down on the sofa next to him.

“Your word is gospel as far as I’m concerned, you know that. And yeah, it’s not for us to decide when they should start their family therapy.” 

“Great. So we agree that reality is a big fucking let down most of the time.” Sean arches his brow like he does it when his football team loses unsurprisingly but still to his dissatisfaction. “There has to be a better version of this story.”

Orlando tilts his head in a silent question, and Sean’s response is a curious look, tempting him to reinvent this story, prompting him to lie. 

Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures, someone once said, and it’s pretty much the credo Orlando lives by. Except, with Sean nothing ever seems arcane to him. It’s all right there, at all times, for him to see, take for granted, take comfort in.

“I love you, I trust you know that,” Orlando says. 

He thinks that maybe he should just kiss Sean, and there would be that happy ending this story needs. But he does crave the showdown any proper crime mystery deserves. And Sean is still looking at him with slightly impatient anticipation. 

So, Orlando doesn’t kiss him but just grins and pats his thigh. Sean laughs heartily. Then he pulls his legs up onto the couch and stretches them out, so he takes up most of the available space, coming to lie with his head in Orlando’s lap. 

“Now quit stalling and get to it already,” he demands.

Orlando chuckles, and the second it takes him to rest his hand over Sean’s collarbone is all the time his mind needs to start re-shaping their adventure.

“Okay, first of all, the big showdown happened at the wedding itself, during the actual ceremony and not at some boring rehearsal.” He looks down at Sean pointedly. “We need to make sure to take some notes in church tomorrow, it’s all in the details.”

“Alright, done,” Sean agrees easily, and Orlando knows he _will_ take his notepad with him.

“You figured out the solution when the priest asked his ‘or shall forever hold their peace’ question. I told you to wait because I have something called manners.” 

Sean scoffs, but Orlando shushes him before he continues.

“But of course you didn’t listen to me and jumped up from your seat. You accused Kieran right then and there. It was a bit like in ‘The Exorcist’, all pointed fingers, agitated gestures and bellowing.”

“You’re such a charmer.”

“What? You can’t deny that you have a slightly dramatic streak. Besides, I cast Kieran as Regan, the possessed child. I maybe should’ve said.”

Sean chuckles, and Orlando can feel the vibration against the palm of his hand.

“So, I accused Kieran of what exactly?” Sean enquires. “Simple theft is a bit boring.”

Orlando doesn’t even have to think about this one. 

“He also killed the security guard because he caught him red-handed and tried to blackmail him.”

“I can see that.”

“There also wasn’t a big family drama moment, awkward for any accidentally present almost strangers. I think, instead Kieran tried to make a run for it.”

Sean looks delighted and closes his hand over Orlando’s on his chest.

“Did he now? How exciting.”

“I stopped him of course.”

“Did you trip him up?” 

Orlando looks down at Sean with a bit of pity at Sean’s lack of imagination.

“I punched him in the face.”

“I hope you broke his nose at least.”

“Of course. He deserved it, he is a greedy thief and a cold-blooded murderer after all. He was arrested on scene by a cop with a drinking problem and one that was eight month pregnant.”

Sean snickers again but then nods to himself.

“And all is well that ends well.”

Orlando hums and adds matter-of-factly, “I think Ali smashed the bride’s bouquet over your head at the end of all this.” 

Sean arches his brows, and his fingertips trace Orlando’s ringfinger. 

“I suppose that means I am to propose to you?” he asks with a smile.

“You can do that if you want,” Orlando replies amiably. “But I won’t marry you.”

“Outch.”

Sean tries to look wounded, but Orlando merely shrugs, not too concerned for the well-being of Sean’s sentimental notions.

“You’ll have to agree that you like getting divorced too much. I’d like to be around for a while.”

Sean can’t argue with that much logic, and so he doesn’t even try. 

He exhales with a pleased hum and momentarily closes his eyes when Orlando’s fingers brush stray strands of hair from his forehead. There is no uncomfortable fragmentariness left to make them fidgety anymore. His touch is light, and the caress lingering.

Sean sighs contentedly and remarks, “Overall, I’d say that that _is_ a version that I’d chose over reality.” 

Pleased with the compliment and himself, Orlando replies, “Thank you.” 

“You’re a good storyteller.” Sean opens his eyes again. “Incidentally, you know who else is?”

Orlando offers a one shouldered shrug.

“Dick Francis? Raymond Chandler? Edgar Allan Poe?” 

“Dr. John Watson.” Sean adopts a contemplative expression, tapping his chin with his index finger. “Now, I wonder who that makes me?”

Orlando instantly shakes his head and stops combing through Sean’s hair. 

“This does _not_ make you Sherlock Holmes! You can’t swindle your way into lead detective status. That would be perverting the whole genre. That’s cheating!”

Sean is greatly amused by Orlando’s default indignation. He sits up and kisses Orlando’s mouth, pursed in protest but instantly softening under the touch. Against his lips, with Orlando’s hand curling against the back of his head, he delivers the killing blow.

“Ah, you know my methods, Watson.”

Orlando protests further, of course. Partly because Sean’s reasoning is definitely faulty, partly because it means that Sean has to put some of his methods of persuasion into action. 

With that, the case of the stolen ring is officially closed. 

However (and much more importantly), the decision regarding the lead detective position is still pending. Further arguments are delivered with a steadily decreasing number of clothing articles worn. Somewhere along the line, they both forget what they were discussing in the first place, which neither of them actually minds all that much. 

It’s only the next morning that Orlando remembers. 

The wedding takes place in a rather beautiful and surprisingly quaint little church, and Sean has indeed brought his notepad. He is however not actually writing anything down because he’s too caught up in the ceremony. 

Billy and Ali look dashing and so much in love that it is possibly blinding to stare at them for longer periods of time. 

The ceremony is uncomplicated and feels much truer than the fought over family heirloom probably ever could. The 500k ring is, consequently, absent from the wedding. What Billy slides onto Ali’s finger is a simple gold band. It is handed to him by Kieran who looks thoughtful and mostly unreadable but maybe even happy for his sister.

Orlando notices all these details and contemplates the peculiarities of the human soul. Sean, on the other hand, is obviously fighting a losing battle against sentimental tears. That clearly proves of course that _Orlando_ is the Baker Street detective, not the army doctor, turned novelist. 

But since this whole wedding thing is rather romantic, Orlando feels generous enough to let the lead detective thing go for the moment. 

Billy and Ali kiss, and parts of the church erupt in spontaneous applause. 

Sean turns to look at him. The laugh lines around his eyes are as well worn as his smile is soft. For a moment it seems like he doesn’t even need a bouquet thrown in his face to prompt him.

Orlando smiles back and leans over to whisper into Sean’s ear,

“You’ll have to wear a deerstalker, you know.”

*** END (for now) *** 

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is obviously basically a rip off of the episode 1.03 of “Psych” with a few minor changes here and there. – Everyone of course knows Billy who in RL has a sister named Maggi and is married to Alison, but I doubt that she has a family as cracked as the one I gave her. – As her brother I cast actor [Kieran Bew](http://www.markhamfroggattandirwin.com/markhamfroggatt/wp-content/uploads/actorimages/Kieran-Bew.jpg) (you might know him from ‘Crusoe’), simply because he is PRETTY (sue me). – I’ll let you decide who the caterpillar and the March hare are :). – As suggested, this might as well take place in the [Casa Del Mar Hotel](http://www.hotelcasadelmar.com/) in Los Angeles. – Philipp Marlowe is of course the famous P.I. from the film noir era that Orlando and Sean in particular adore; the quotes at the end of the balcony conversation are taken from [“The Big Sleep“](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Sleep_\(1946_film\)). – Also this is littered with various quotes from Kierkegaard, Rabelais, and (of course) Conan Doyle and Christie.


End file.
